The Breakthrough Institute has joined with a group of leading congressmen and public policy, business, and academic organizations to sponsor the new Golden Goose Award, which will "highlight the often unexpected or serendipitous nature of basic scientific research."
Recognizing that new scientific or technological advances can come from unexpected places, the award will honor federally funded researchers whose projects initially sounded odd or obscure but contributed to important breakthroughs.
Despite robust growth and recent improvements in price and performance, a boom in US clean energy technology ("clean tech") sectors could now falter as federal clean energy spending declines sharply, according to a new report published today by some of the country's top energy analysts.
To both sustain clean energy growth and put the United States' clean tech sectors on an accelerated path to subsidy independence and global competitiveness, analysts at the Breakthrough Institute, Brookings Institution, and World Resources Institute counsel a thorough revamping of American clean energy policies to prioritize innovation and cost declines.
The rewards for smart policy reform now are enormous: with global energy markets hungry for clean, affordable energy technologies and clean tech markets continuing to mature and improve, this is exactly the time for America to secure its leadership in clean tech.
What does energy have to do with ending poverty? Bill Gates -- whose philanthropic largesse has made him one of the most prominent advocates for the world's poor -- should know.
At the recent Wall Street JournalECO:nomics forum, Gates made a pitch for making energy cheap and clean around the world.
"If you want to improve the situation of the poorest two billion on the planet, having the price of energy go down substantially is about the best thing you could do for them," Gates said. "Energy is the thing that allowed civilization over the last 220 years to dramatically change everything."
It is time to take stock of our current climate trajectory, and consider what it means for climate policy. In Part 1 of this week long series, we argued that our current climate trajectory means we must 1) redouble efforts to reduce CO2 emissions as quickly as possible, and 2) we must proactively build resilience to the uncertain impacts of a changing climate. Part 2 examined why voluntary economic contraction is a not a viable strategy for reducing emissions “as quickly as possible.” Part 3 explained why implementing a robust clean energy innovation strategy is the key way to making clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels, thus enabling the rapid adoption of low-carbon energy sources and drastically reducing CO2 as quickly as possible. Part 4 discusses why adaptation through innovation is central to preparing for the impacts of a warmer world and buying us time to drastically cut emissions.
The door is closed to mitigating away all of the potentially dangerous impacts of climate change. We’ve simply waited too long to take sweeping action and provide a cheap and viable clean energy substitute to fossil fuels. In Part 1 of this series, we discussed that even so, the key objective of climate mitigation efforts is still the same – we must drastically cut emissions as quickly as possible (and Part 2 and Part 3 discussed how).
Yet the warmer world we have locked ourselves into does inform other policy choices. In particular, building our resilience to extreme weather and increasing our adaptive capacity is now equally as important as mitigation and should be treated as such. Advocating for adaptation and mitigation is nothing new – in fact it’s common place. The argument here is that adaptation must now be a cornerstone of all climate policy choices – domestic or otherwise.
When it comes to climate adaptation policymaking, a lot of work needs to be done, as it’s still a topic that has been largely ignored by U.S. decision makers. In fact, the most immediate hurdle is for decision makers to stop paying lip-service to the need for an adaptation policy and begin aggressively implementing real resilience efforts.
It is time to take stock of our current climate trajectory, and consider what it means for climate policy. In Part 1 of this week long series, we argued that our current climate trajectory means we must 1) redouble efforts to reduce CO2 emissions as quickly as possible, and 2) we must proactively build resilience to the uncertain impacts of a changing climate. Part 2 examined why voluntary economic contraction is a not a viable strategy for reducing emissions “as quickly as possible.” Part 3 explains why implementing a robust clean energy innovation strategy is the key way to making clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels, thus enable rapid adoption of low-carbon energy sources and drastically reducing CO2 as quickly as possible.
As we wrote in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, our current climate trajectory and global political economy dictates that the only way we can limit potentially dangerous climate change impacts, above the dangerous impacts we’re already locked into, is to redouble efforts to reduce global CO2 emissions as quickly as possible. To rapidly decarbonize the economy requires greatly accelerating the replacement of fossil fuels with low or zero-carbon clean energy substitutes. Implementing the right strategies to do so raises numerous stark policy choices and issues.
The most fundamental issue is that energy is largely a fungible commodity – the electricity coming out of your wall socket doesn’t have any immediately tangible differences whether it comes from a coal plant or a wind farm. The only immediate difference is cost. This key reality means that the rate of adoption for new clean energy technologies is largely moderated by two principal levers:
(1) The level of public tolerance for paying for the cost of cleaner energy in the form of higher energy costs, subsidies, or reduced economic welfare; and
(2) The cost competitiveness of clean energy compared to fossil fuels.
The Great Recession has given way to a less-than-great recovery and the pressure is on for Washington to respond. In an upcoming debate, two leading economic thinkers will go toe to toe on whether Keynesian economics offers a credible economic growth agenda.
In the first issue of Breakthrough Journal, ITIF President Rob Atkinson takes traditional Keynesians to task for pushing for additional demand-side public pump priming and for what he sees as their focus on distribution of the economic pie rather than the growth of the pie. In a response, Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, rejects Atkinson's critique and calls it a "potshot" that dismisses research showing that economic growth is in fact demand-driven.
The two have agreed to hash out their differences in a public debate co-sponsored by ITIF and Breakthrough Journal. Is traditional stimulus spending and assistance to individuals a useful but inadequate response to the Great Recession? Does the slow recovery suggest something more is needed to restore U.S. competitiveness, such as corporate tax reform that encourages innovation and investments in high-end manufacturing, more rigorous trade enforcement, and government support for R&D? Where do today's Keynesians and innovation economists find common ground? Join us for a thought-provoking and candid exploration of progressive economic policies at a historic crossroads.
Debate: Progressive Economics and the Great Recession Date and Time: Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 9:30-11:00 AM Location: ITIF, 1101 K Street NW (Suite 610A) Washington, DC 20005
Participants:
Robert D. Atkinson
President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (Presenter)
Dean Baker
Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research (Presenter)
John Dimsdale
Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief, American Public Media (Moderator)
Before adjourning to watch yule logs and eat holiday hams, Congress actually managed to pass a 2012 budget bill. ITIF's Matthew Stepp provided us with an early analysis of the bill's impact on energy innovation funding. Funding for key Department of Energy (DOE) innovation offices are up by a modest 2.5 percent relative to the 2011 budget, with impacts on specific programs summarized in the table below...
The Fiscal Year 2012 budget dedicates $768 million to the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, a nearly 6 percent increase from FY2011 levels. As with overall funding for DOE innovation offices, the 2012 budget thus halts and begins to reverse the declines in federal energy innovation funding initiated in the 2011 budget, which saw nuclear energy funding fall 15 percent (or $132 million) from 2010 budget appropriations.
By Matthew Stepp, Clean Energy Policy Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and 2010 Breakthrough Generation Fellow." Originally published at the ITIF Blog.
The FY2012 Omnibus Appropriations bill, passed through the House and Senate conference committee last week, provides a small 2.5 percent increase in DOE energy innovation investment-related Offices and programs compared to FY2011. The budget includes key investments for new Energy Innovation Hubs, next-generation small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) RD&D and licensing programs, as well as a boost in funding for ARPA-E. Compared to the roughly $800 million cut to energy innovation investments in FY2011 and the additional cuts sought in the House version of the appropriations bill, the FY2012 budget provides renewed, albeit modest, government support for developing affordable and viable clean energy technologies.
To be clear, the 2012 federal budget still falls short of FY2010's peak in energy innovation investments made through the Stimulus and represents only 72 percent of what the President requested for next year. It's vital that more work is done to increase public investments in clean energy innovation, as the government must play an energetic role in supporting the development of next-generation technologies. However, the FY2012 budget does take steps to stabilize, and in some cases boost, high-impact clean energy investments (Figure 1, below). Below are a few of the highlights:
By Mark Caine, Research Officer at the London School of Economics, Co-ordinator for the Hartwell Group, and 2010 Breakthrough Generation Fellow
Ideas Whose Times Have Come
Something profound is happening in the world of energy and climate policy.
In the wake of another tepid COP conference that, once again, failed to put the world even "on a path to solve the climate problem", previously heterodox ideas are entering mainstream thinking.
From the inadequacy of the Kyoto protocol and the immediate imperative for adaptation to an innovation-centric climate policy, no-regrets action on non-CO2 forcers, and energy access for all: a set of pragmatic ideas that the Breakthrough Institute, Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke Jr., the authors of The Hartwell Paper, and others have advocated for years -- often to an onslaught of cynical opposition -- are now being promoted as front-line strategies to manage our complex set of energy and climate challenges.
Take the Kyoto protocol, which despite its well-documented structural flaws has been treated for years as the only game in town--the plan A for which "there really is no plan B". Now, realizing that the modest agreement reached at Durban is little more than a face-saving maneuver that means, at best, an eight year punt on universally binding emissions reductions, commentators are beginning to sing a different tune.
"Kyoto was built to fail," reports left-of-center UK paper The Guardian. The process has faltered, writes John Broder in the New York Times, because it taken on "too great a task." Political analyst Andrew Charlton reports from down under that there is, in fact, a plan B, consisting primarily of policy prescriptions that will sound remarkably familiar to anyone who has read Fast, Clean, and Cheap, The Hartwell Paper, The Climate Fix, or a growing body of books and academic articles advocating innovation-centric energy policies combined with robust adaptation measures and a commitment to universal energy access.
Perhaps more than any, this last issue has sailed from the margins to the mainstream. A key tenet of the 2010 Hartwell Paper, the imperative to empower the world's poor through the provision of universal energy access -- and bring energy poverty to the center of energy and climate debates -- has become a cause celebre at the UN Foundation. Did you know that 2012 is the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All? Finally, something everyone from Ban-Ki Moon to nu metal band Linkin Park can agree on!
In all seriousness though, the global community's newfound support for universal energy access is a heartening development--not least for the 1.3 billion people lacking electricity and the 2.7 billion people burning dung and sticks to cook and heat their homes. To be sure, the emissions implications of empowering these people using available technology remain inconclusive: the IEA's rosy estimate of a .7% increase in global CO2 emissions defines 'access' for rural denizens at a paltry 250 kWh/year, 1/55th of the US average and 1/32nd that of ultra-efficient Japan (World Bank data). Yet any steps to bring modern energy to the energy-poor are justifiable in their own right on basic principles of equity, not to mention their contingent benefits for public health, education, economic opportunity, andenhanced resilience to future climate impacts.
Post-"Post-pollution"
In his New York Times review of the shifting dynamics in the energy and climate debate, Andrew Revkin cites both Roger Pielke Jr. and the authors of The Hartwell Paper, crediting them for helping spread this "post-pollution" emphasis on climate resilience, energy modernization, and strategic public and private investment in clean energy innovation. Revkin is nearly alone amongst journalists in tracing back the roots of these approaches, but a frequent lack of attribution is predictable. Indeed, the broad, uncoordinated adoption of these "post-pollution" framings and policy approaches may have been inevitable, a reflection less of their progenitors than their sensibility.
As these framings and policy ideas become more widely accepted, the challenge for those of us who have long advocated these positions, including the Hartwell Group network which I work to coordinate, will begin to shift. As once-heterodox problem definitions and policy approaches from the Breakthrough Institute, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the Hartwell Group, and others enter mainstream discussion, what can we offer going forward?
Arguably, the most important thing we must do now is deliver top-quality research and analysis on the hard questions of innovation that are not yet being addressed in most climate policy discussions. Though many have accepted rapid innovation as a necessity, few have actually opened up the "black box" of innovation to understand what specific kinds of innovation we need, how to fund and scale them, and how to overcome persistent challenges such as rent-seeking behavior, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, and the "valleys of death" that plague the innovation and commercialization process. Understanding the need for innovation is not the same as knowing how best to do it.
The Breakthrough Institute has already taken up this effort, backing up its long-standing support for innovation as an energy and climate solution with detailed analysis of the mechanics of how innovation works and, by extension, how to spark, accelerate, direct, fund, and scale it. And the Hartwell Group is working to coordinate a network of international scholars and analysts to further develop key recommendations for actionable and pragmatic climate solutions.
This work alone won't solve the myriad complex, interconnected energy and climate challenges that face us. But it will help lay the foundation for a safer, more prosperous, and more equitable future--a future in which the essential functioning of the earth system is preserved and all people have access to safe, reliable energy and protection from the vagaries of extreme weather, whatever its cause.
"An oftentimes myopic focus on the budget deficit has obscured the fact that America actually faces three deficits--the budget deficit, the trade deficit, and the investment deficit--that, if left unchecked, could total over $41 trillion in the next 10 years. Reducing all three deficits, not just the budget deficit, is critical to future economic prosperity."
The only way to reduce the three deficits, we argue, is to increase productive public investments in innovation, productivity, and competitiveness, while making targeted cuts to areas of consumptive government spending.
More economic experts are embracing the idea that the only way to both climb out of our economic doldrums and close the budget deficit, is through growth-enhancing public investments.
In last week's Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria argues that federal investment is central to long-term economic growth. Yet over the last two decades America has failed to make long-term investments to sustain economic prosperity. In "Taking on the Three Deficits," we estimate that America's "investment deficit" now totals $2.5 trillion and may grow to $5 trillion by 2020. "If we want the next generation of growth," Zakaria writes, "we need a similarly serious strategy of investment."
You can read the full "Taking on the Three Deficits" report here.
In a new report from the Breakthrough Institute Energy and Climate Program, we document the challenges facing American energy entrepreneurs seeking to commercialize advanced energy technologies to enhance US energy, economic, and environmental security. Innovative public policy solutions are needed to support private sector innovation and overcome the "valleys of death" that trap too many promising advanced energy ventures.
The United States faces an urgent national imperative to modernize and diversify its energy system by developing and deploying clean, and affordable advanced energy technologies. Domestically, developing new energy supplies and ensuring affordable energy prices will bolster American competitiveness and economic growth. Reducing the cost of advanced energy technologies is the key to finally ending a dependence on volatile global oil markets that holds the American economy hostage, compromises our foreign policy, and bleeds more than a billion dollars a day out of the US economy.
Abroad, the military has already begun deploying innovative clean energy technologies to reduce the high cost, paid in both lives and money, associated with transporting fossil fuels across war zones. Moreover, the impending risks posed by climate change compel the accelerated improvement and widespread deployment of low-carbon energy technologies. Countries around the world are already recognizing the critical need for new advanced energy technologies and are positioning themselves to lead the next wave of energy innovation.
Global energy demand is rising steadily, straining the ability of conventional energy systems to keep pace. For security, economic, and environmental reasons, the global energy system is thus modernizing and diversifying. Developing and developed nations alike are seeking new forms of advanced energy technologies that reduce dependence on foreign nations, insulate economies from volatile energy markets, and are cleaner and thus less costly from a public health perspective. Supplying this $5 trillion global energy market with reliable and affordable clean energy technologies thus represents one of the most significant market opportunities of the 21st century.
Despite this clear energy innovation imperative, the United States and the world remain overly reliant on conventional fuels and exposed to the price volatility and persistent public health impacts that reliance entails. The necessary course of energy modernization remains impeded by the high cost and barriers to scalability of today's clean energy technologies. These are barriers that only innovation can overcome.
However, two obstacles currently block the progress of energy innovation, obstacles which can only be addressed through effective public policy. Due to pervasive market barriers, private sector financing is typically unavailable to bring new energy innovations from early-stage laboratory research to proof-of-concept prototype and on to full commercial scale. This leads to two market gaps that kill off too many promising new energy technologies in the cradle. These gaps are known as the early-stage "Technological Valley of Death" and the later-stage "Commercialization Valley of Death." This pair of barriers is endemic to most innovative technologies yet is particularly acute in the energy sector. As a result, many innovative energy prototypes never make it to the marketplace and never have a chance to compete with established energy technologies. These valleys of death particularly plague capital-starved start-ups and entrepreneurial small and medium-sized firms, the very same innovators that are so often at the heart of American economic vitality.
In effect, the current lack of public policy to address this pair of barriers acts to protect today's well entrenched incumbent technologies from full market competition, while hamstringing American entrepreneurs and innovative ventures seeking to develop and deploy advanced energy technologies. The implementation of creative policies to effectively deal with the Technological and Commercialization Valleys of Death will foster vibrant competition in the energy sector and help drive technological innovation and job creation throughout the economy as a whole.
In the past, the United States has driven immense and far-reaching technological transformations. As the pioneering global innovator of the 20th century, the United States built the world's largest economy because of the ingenuity and creative enterprise of its entrepreneurs and citizens. Each step of the way, proactive public policy has played a crucial role in driving American innovations, from railroads and jet engines to microchips, biotechnology, and the Internet, unleashing long waves of economic growth and shared prosperity. New and advanced clean energy technologies afford the same opportunities to the United States today--if public policy is shaped in a way that allows American innovators to thrive once again.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu will appear today before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation to answer questions on the DOE Loan Program Office. While there are important questions to answer regarding the role of government in technology investment and energy innovation, these questions are unlikely to be the main subject of today's hearing.
What was the original purpose of the Section 1705 loan guarantee program, and what was the expected impact on federal budgets and taxpayers?
In 2009, Section 1705 was added to the DOE Loan Programs Office (LPO), established by the bipartisan Energy Policy Act of 2005. The program was originally appropriated $6 billion in federal funds to provide reserves to cover expected losses on a portion of the loans issued by the agency. This $6 billion would be leveraged to offer a significantly higher loan guarantee volume, unlocking substantial debt finance that would be supplied by private banks. The original $6 billion in funding was raided by Congress to provide funds for the Cash-for-Clunkers program in 2009, however, and ultimately 1705 ended up with a $2.5 billion pool to cover expected loan losses.
Congressional investigators should prioritize clean energy commercialization solutions over political grandstanding and focus on identifying key lessons from the experience of the Loan Programs Office. Congress should put these lessons to immediate use to reform federal involvement in clean energy commercialization and establish a new Clean Energy Deployment Administration.
Step right up to see the latest chapter in the ongoing political circus surrounding the bankruptcy of solar manufacturer and federal loan guarantee recipient Solyndra. Today's main attraction: Secretary of Energy Steven Chu's long-awaited appearance before the eager Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Key questions remain about the ill-fated solar manufacturer's dramatic demise earlier this year. Unfortunately, investigations on the Hill long ago veered into the realm of political point-scoring, rather than a serious inquiry designed to improve federal support for nascent and nationally-critical clean energy technologies.
Taking a step back from the circus on the Hill, let's make two things very clear.
First, the global energy system is modernizing and diversifying. For an array of motivations from public health and climate change to security and economic growth, today's economies demand a 21st century suite of clean and reliable energy technologies to supply the $5 trillion-and-growing global energy market.
Second, the DOE Loan Programs Office was never particularly well equipped to effectively address the "Commercialization Valley of Death"--the persistent lack of risk-tolerant capital that plagues American innovators and entrepreneurs working valiantly to improve the nation's energy, economic, and environmental security.
In the wake of Solyndra's failure, pundits have latched on to a simple, compelling narrative: government can't do energy right.
From synfuels to solar panels to "clean coal" (written, inevitably, with knowing quotation marks), demonstration projects funded by the Department of Energy are described as one failed white elephant after another. Today the DOE is the agency everyone loves to hate (and, at least in Texas Gov. Rick Perry's case, the agency to forget).
What gets left out (and forgotten) is that virtually every one of today's major energy technologies exists thanks to sustained US government investments in research, development, and demonstration. Consider:
Solar panels were pioneered by NASA, and have seen massive price declines thanks to government research, development, and deployment. Industry leader First Solar is a direct descendant of DOE research as are Nanosolar and GE's thin film solar division.
The global market for clean energy products grew to $243 billion in 2010, a year in which China and Germany both captured a greater share of this global investment than the United States. That has led many (myself included) to worry about the erosion of US competitiveness in a set of clean energy technology products--from solar and wind to nuclear and advanced batteries--originally invented in America.
Yet this growing market for clean tech is almost entirely dependent upon public subsidy and policy support. To be blunt: today's clean energy markets are artificial, and without perpetual policy support, conventional clean energy products could not compete in most global energy markets.
Across the globe, cash-strapped governments and recession-hit publics are pulling back clean energy subsidies, revealing the ephemeral nature of today's clean tech markets. In the last year, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom have all slashed feed-in tariffs for solar and certain other clean energy technologies. In America, expiring tax credits and fading stimulus investments are set to send federal clean tech expenditures plunging 75 percent from 2009 to 2014, according to our research.
There are a hostof reasons why targeted policies and smart public investments in emerging clean tech sectors are justified. But clean tech business leaders and policymakers alike must be crystal clear: the true economic rewards in clean energy industries will not come from producing technology for subsidy-created markets that vacillate wildly with the public mood and the business cycle.
Without substantial innovation to improve the performance and reduce the cost of clean energy technologies, the promise that the clean energy sector might become economically viable, much less a cornerstone of American economic revival, will never be realized. The real clean energy race is thus to invent, commercialize, progressively improve, and mass-produce cheap and reliable clean energy technologies that can compete on cost not just with international competitors but also with fossil fuels.
In short, the race is to make clean energy cheap and subsidy-independent.
A new report by the Breakthrough Institute and Third Way argues that the United States needs to rethink its approach to manufacturing to incentivize and enhance next generation "advanced manufacturing" and worker training.
Stagnant and out-dated policy debates in Washington are the reason that advanced, high-tech products are mostly manufactured outside of the United States, according to a new paper jointly issued by two think tanks. The report, from the Breakthrough Institute and leading moderate think tank Third Way, argues that American manufacturing could experience a resurgence with a focus on complicated and technology-intensive manufacturing products.
"The Kindle has revolutionized how people read, but even though it was born in Silicon Valley, Amazon makes it in Taiwan," said Director of Third Way's Economic Program and the report's co-author, Ryan McConaghy. "When looking for the precision needed to build the e-reader, Amazon had to look abroad for experienced manufacturers because the technology was no longer available here. It's a huge missed opportunity."
By Alex Trembath. This post was originally published at Energetics.
The last few weeks have been pretty cool, if your definition of cool, like mine, involves a bevy of new reading materials extolling the benefits of public investment in technology innovation.
New report from the American Energy Innovation Council (already blogged about here and here), featuring the wisdom and research of Bill Gates, John Doerr, Jeff Immelt, and other titans of American industry. The report refutes the notion that deficits require paring back our investments in science and technology, and explicitly calls for increased federal funding for energy innovation as well as the creation of new public-private partnerships to bring clean energy technologies to commercial scale.
Mitt Romney's new economic plan, released yesterday, places him in the company of a growing club of conservative innovation hawks who support public investment in energy technology and an innovation agenda.
In an effort to distinguish themselves from the pack, and in anticipation of tonight's debate, the various Republican presidential candidates are stepping forward with their own well-tailored plans to spur economic recovery and "renew American greatness." In the process, Mitt Romney stands out in favor of federal investment in innovation, particularly in the clean tech sector, joining a growing cadre of influential conservative "innovation hawks" who advocate sensible and bipartisan policies for growing the economy.
Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and leading Republican candidate for president, released his economic plan yesterday. The hefty report, "Believe in America," (PDF) comes in at 160 pages and describes Romney's 59-point plan to "revitalize our economy and to reignite the job-creating engine of the United States." One of his seven central areas of focus is energy, and his proposed policies go beyond the boilerplate "drill, baby, drill" and "cap-and-tax" GOP rhetoric. Indeed, Romney's energy plan adopts an encouraging agenda centered around innovation, R&D, and limited direct public investment.
The following was written by Matthew Stepp, Clean Energy Policy Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and is cross-posted from the Innovation Policy Blog.
There's no telling what the future of new U.S. clean energy policy holds. Congress and the White House are stalled in legislative gridlock over the debt ceiling. And clean energy programs are taking a beating in 2012 budget negotiations. But even so, some legislators are taking it upon themselves to offer cohesive clean energy innovation initiatives that are an excellent framework for future energy policy debates. Case in point, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D - MI) proposed the Battery Innovation Act of 2011(BIA) - a comprehensive advanced electric vehicle battery initiative.
As it stands, affordable, energy dense batteries that can travel long distances on a single charge are a key barrier to widespread electric vehicle adoption. And as I've discussed in an earlier post, the current advanced battery technology strategy at DOE is more disparate than coordinated. So BIA is a welcomed and excellent first step in addressing this weakness in U.S. energy policy.
BIA addresses the full range of advanced vehicle battery technology development. The most significant standout in the proposal is its focus on addressing the numerous stages of technology development. BIA supports battery innovation from basic research through manufacturing as well as attends to the growing need for rare, but critical materials in battery production. For instance it orders the Department of Interior to conduct a much needed analysis of the raw materials used in vehicle batteries with special attention on U.S. supply and reliance on those materials. The reliance on rare materials, such as cerium and yttrium, in current electric vehicle battery designs puts the United States at a significant disadvantage. China currently produces 97 percent of the these materials, meaning that without significant domestic supply or the innovation of viable substitute materials we could be trading in our reliance for foreign oil in exchange for a reliance on foreign rare materials. This study would be in line and complementary to DOE's critical materials strategy released late last year.
A pragmatic strategy to restart stalled global climate efforts through the pursuit of energy innovation, climate resilience, and no regrets pollution reduction (Report Overview)
Climate Pragmatism, a new policy report released July 26th by the Hartwell group, details an innovative strategy to restart global climate efforts after the collapse of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. This pragmatic strategy centers on efforts to accelerate energy innovation, build resilience to extreme weather, and pursue no regrets pollution reduction measures -- three efforts that each have their own diverse justifications independent of their benefits for climate mitigation and adaptation. As such, Climate Pragmatism offers a framework for renewed American leadership on climate change that's effectiveness, paradoxically, does not depend on any agreement about climate science or the risks posed by uncontrolled greenhouse gases.
The new report brings the Hartwell framework into an American perspective, and it is authored by a broad group of 14 international scholars and analysts representing a diverse range of political and ideological positions -- from the conservative American Enterprise Institute to moderate Democratic think tank Third Way and the liberal Breakthrough Institute.
Climate Pragmatism is the third paper released by the Hartwell group, an informal international network of scholars and analysts dedicated to innovative strategies that uplift human dignity through mitigation of climate risk, enhancement of disaster resilience, improvement of public health, and the provision of universal energy access. Previous publications include The Hartwell Paper (May 2010) and How to Get Climate Policy Back on Course (July 2009).
Climate Pragmatism also builds on the limited and direct energy technology innovation strategy outlined by the Breakthrough Institute along with scholars at the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution in the October 2010 policy report, Post-Partisan Power.
As the report's authors explain:
The old climate framework failed because it would have imposed substantial costs associated with climate mitigation policies on developed nations today in exchange for climate benefits far off in the future -- benefits whose attributes, magnitude, timing, and distribution are not knowable with certainty. Since they risked slowing economic growth in many emerging economies, efforts to extend the Kyoto-style UNFCCC framework to developing nations predictably deadlocked as well.
The new framework now emerging will succeed to the degree to which it prioritizes agreements that promise near-term economic, geopolitical, and environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings, developing clean and affordable energy technologies, and improving societal resilience to climate impacts. This new approach recognizes that continually deadlocked international negotiations and failed domestic policy proposals bring no climate benefit at all. It accepts that only sustained effort to build momentum through politically feasible forms of action will lead to accelerated decarbonization.
Twenty-three years ago, Ronald Reagan addressed the nation to defend federal investments in research and development, even amidst dire budgetary constraints, prefacing the innovation hawks of today. The following is excerpted from Reagan's 1988 national address:
Federal funding for science is in jeopardy because of budget constraints. That's why it's my duty as President to draw its importance to your attention and that of Congress.
...The remarkable thing is that although basic research does not begin with a particular practical goal, when you look at the results over the years, it ends up being one of the most practical things government does... Major industries, including television, communications, and computer industries, couldn't be where they are today without developments that began with this basic research.
...one thing is certain: If we don't explore, others will, and we'll fall behind. This is why I've urged Congress to devote more money to research. After taking out inflation, today's government research expenditures are 58 percent greater than the expenditures of a decade ago. It is an indispensable investment in America's future.
...Some say that we can't afford it, that we're too strapped for cash. Well, leadership means making hard choices, even in an election year. We've put our research budget under a microscope and looked for quality and cost effectiveness. We've put together the best program for the taxpayers' dollars. After all, the American tradition of hope is one we can't afford to forget.
It's not often that we agree with Ronal Reagan's policy prescriptions. But even Reagan recognized the difference between productive government investment and government spending, and called for increased investments in science and innovation even at a time of tight fiscal concerns. Reagan's speech stands in stark contrast to the ideology of modern-day Congressional Republicans, who continue to push cuts to critical federal investments in energy innovation, wholly disregarding the critical role that federal investments in innovation have played in driving the nation's economic growth.
The 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, passed on Friday by the House of Representatives, would cut federal energy innovation funding by 12 percent of the levels put in place by the FY11 Continuing Resolution, 37 percent below the White House's FY12 budget request. The bill would cut the Department of Energy (DOE)'s budget by $2.5 billion over FY2010 funding levels.
Overall, the House's plan would cut about $644 million from the combined budgets of the five major DOE offices engaged in energy innovation activities (see Figure 1 and Table 1 below). However, these new cuts are relative to FY11 budget levels, already diminished by spending reductions included in a Continuing Resolution passed by Congress in April to fund the government through the end of the year. All told, the 2012 Appropriations bill would see funding levels for the five core DOE energy innovation agencies tumble $1.4 billion below FY10 levels and a precipitous $3 billion below President Obama's budget request for FY12.
Figure 1, below, and accompanying Table 1, present the House budget in comparison to the funding levels for these offices in FY10, FY11, and previous Administration budget requests.
For exact figures, see Table 1 at the end of this post.
A new report provides detailed evidence that the clean economy is here. Keeping it here will require a national and regional policy framework for driving innovation.
This morning the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program released a comprehensive new report, "Sizing the Clean Economy," which takes a detailed look at the United States' ongoing transformation toward a low-carbon future. The report, co-produced with Battelle Technology Partnership, presents the most detailed data available on jobs and establishments in the clean economy, and finds that the clean economy accounts for 2.7 million jobs, more than both the biosciences and fossil fuel sectors, and a little over half the size of the IT sector. (Also check out the new interactive map that accompanies the report)
However, "clean energy" jobs account for only a fraction of the 2.7 million clean economy jobs calculated by Brookings/Battelle. Indeed, the majority of jobs are in more traditional "environmental" sectors like waste management and treatment, mass transit, and conservation. The jobs we usually think of as clean energy jobs--those in renewables, nuclear, smart grid, fuel cells, batteries, energy efficiency and electric vehicle technology--account for just 20 percent of this 2.7 million. While the rest of the clean economy has generally lagged the overall economy in terms of job growth, these newer clean energy industries have experienced explosive job growth, albeit from small bases.
The clean tech sector is headed for a major crash, as the subsidies required to make clean energy artificially cheaper are becoming unsustainable. Avoiding future crashes will require reorienting our energy policies to drive innovation, rather than simply deploying existing technologies that can't compete without subsidy.
The global clean energy industry is set for a major crash. The reason is simple. Clean energy is still much more expensive and less reliable than coal or gas, and in an era of heightened budget austerity the subsidies required to make clean energy artificially cheaper are becoming unsustainable.
Clean tech crashes are nothing new. The U.S. wind energy industry has collapsed three times before, first in the mid 1990s and most recently in 2002 and 2004 when Congress failed to extend the tax credit that made it profitable. But the impact and magnitude of the coming clean tech crash will far outstrip those of past years.
Two recent articles show that an innovation and investment-centered paradigm for addressing climate change is advancing in other countries around the world.
After 20 years of dominance, the pollution paradigm--the idea that we could solve climate change similar to the way we've addressed conventional pollution problems--irretrievably failed in 2010. At the end of 2009, the collapse in Copenhagen spelled the end of efforts to enact legally binding emissions caps at the international level. In the United States, cap and trade failed for the fourth time in ten years and is politically dead for decades.
Carbon pricing and emissions trading schemes are also in retreat in other nations around the world, including Canada and Australia. Recognizing both the political difficulties associated with carbon pricing and its failure to reduce emissions where it has been tried, more scholars and opinionmakers in other countries are advancing an innovation and investment-centered climate agenda developed over the years by the Breakthrough Institute and its allies.
Last week, Vice President Joe Biden vowed that the country will lead the global clean energy revolution by harnessing its citizens' entrepreneurial spirit and innovative capacity. Speaking at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Biden emphasized the vital role public-private partnerships have historically played in unleashing transformative innovations, and the critical nature of this collaboration in sparking breakthrough clean energy technologies.
Biden's speech, excerpted below, can be watched in full here.
Now, more than ever, America's future competitiveness depends on our ability to innovate and our capacity to live up to our rich history of technological advancement. This kind of public-private partnership fosters extraordinary innovation, allows brilliant ideas to develop, and gives businesses the tools they need to bring technology to the market.
What we've realized is sometimes it takes a national investment and a national vision to spark private sector investment. The government never does it. But the government can spark it on occasion. And over and over it again it has been that American model of innovation that has allowed us to lead the world in technological advances over the last 150 years. It's part of our nation's DNA. It's embedded in our nation's history.
Whether it was government collaborating with private industry to make rifles that had interchangeable parts during the revolutionary war, or Congress helping Samuel Morris build a transmission facility, the line that he could not afford to build, to demonstrate that his invention worked, proving it would go over long distances and turning it into what ended up being the telecommunications industry we know today. Or President Lincoln paying any private railroad who'd lay 40 miles of track on the transcontinental railroad in $16,000 in government treasury bonds which they would not have done otherwise to carry commerce across America and having now a $380 billion rail industry in America.
Or President Eisenhower investing in what he called beyond the horizon ideas at ARPA in the late 50s creating the internet and so much more. That's America's story. That's the history of the journey of the country.
Drum draws our attention to some "eye popping" figures for price elasticity of demand for oil from the IMF. According to Drum, these elasticities mean that, in the short term, a 50 percent increase in price leads to a 1.2 percent decrease in consumption. In the long term, it leads to a 4.7 percent decrease.
Conservative blogger Jim Manzi rightly points out that, with elasticities as low as these, a gas tax at any politically realistic level is not going to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
Specifically, to the extent that we continue to progress in making non-fossil-fuels technology cheaper and more effective for an ever wider array of applications, we can accelerate the ongoing de-carbonization of our economy. The idea of economists to use artificial scarcity pricing to do this is aggressively marketed in blogs, magazines and TV shows, but is extremely unlikely to work, because the current price elasticity of oil is so low. The work of engineers and physical scientists, however, is likely to be determinative.
Newt Gingrich has joined a growing group of innovation hawks in recognizing the importance of federal innovation investments in driving U.S. economic growth. Speaking at a Brookings Institution conference, the former Speaker of the House argued against making across-the-board cuts to government spending and acknowledged that we need to preserve key federal investments in science and technology research.
'One of them [the Republicans' ideas for addressing the deficit] is cutting investment in science and research,' Mr. Gingrich told a Brookings Institution conference. 'It's essentially like saying I want to save money on your car [so] we're not going to change the oil. And for about a year I can get away with it, then the engine will freeze, and we have to change the engine.'
In short, Mr. Gingrich argued: All government spending is not created equal. All government spending is not evil. And Washington's approach to budgets is imprudently starving the future.
In advocating for critical federal investments in innovation, Gingrich echoes the innovation-centered federal strategy outlined by President Obama is his State of the Union speech earlier this year.
Gingrich is strongly critical of the parts of his party's recently released 2012 budget proposal that would strip critical funding for innovation across the federal government.
It's not too late for President Obama to return to the clear path to "winning the future" articulated in his State of the Union. But righting the nation's economic trajectory demands a concerted and consistent effort to help Americans understand and embrace the difference between spending and investment, and to recognize that a growing economy fueled by new innovations, new technologies, and new industries is an essential component of any strategy to tame the debt.
"The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation. ... We'll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology, an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people."
With those remarks at the heart of his State of the Union address - and a 2012 Budget proposal to back them up - President Obama drew a line in the sand and articulated a vision of American economic renewal fueled by key investments in the kind of public-private partnership that brought us the railroads and jet aviation, microchips and the Internet, countless biomedical breakthroughs and a portfolio of clean energy alternatives.
As we wrote in January, "Obama's [State of the Union address] was a rejection of proposals to cut federal spending across the board, as he finally made the case before the American people about why public support for innovation is critical for the country's long-term prosperity."
It was a plan to "win the future" and restore American prosperity that embraced the crucial distinction between government spending - consumptive, transitory, and sometimes even wasteful - and public investment - that small portion of our federal budget that catalyzes the enduring innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth that makes this nation strong. We hailed the speech as "Obama's breakthrough" moment.
But that was January...
Today, we're veering closer to a very different vision of America's budgetary future, one that seems to embrace the logic of "across-the-board" spending cuts proffered by Republicans, including decreasing budgets for major national research agencies and clean energy innovation programs.
Budget Deal Cuts Investment in Innovation
Late on April 8th, President Obama's negotiators gave his imprimatur to a compromise to fund the government through the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year that would see federal investments in energy innovation fall by nearly 11% (or $325 million) below 2010 levels while stripping over $1 billion from the budgets of the nation's major non-defense research agencies.
These cuts amount to a veritable funding cliff, when one considers the nearly simultaneous expiration of the temporary investments flowing to innovation agencies in 2009 and 2010 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
If this is the opening battle in the war to win America's future, it is a clear defeat.
Two more influential voices have joined the growing ranks of innovation hawks on both sides of the political spectrum in urging against cuts in federal investment in science and technology. Noted political commentator Mort Kondrake writes that the GOP budget would "torch America's seed corn," while Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers writes that Congress should increase funding for energy research to make clean energy cheap.
As the Congressional Republicans continue to push cuts to critical federal investments in innovation, two more prominent voices have joined a growing group of innovation hawks on both sides of the aisle seeking to preserve or even increase federal funding for science and technology.
The first is noted political commentator Mort Kondrake, who wrote recently in Roll Call that the GOP is threatening to "torch America's seed corn" by cutting federal technology investment. Kondrake, a long-time contributor to Fox News and Executive Editor of Roll Call, notes that the Republicans' budget bill would cut funding for scientific research agencies by more than 33 percent, at a time when countless science and technology experts argue that we must increase such investments to spur economic growth. As Kondrake notes, the GOP budget proposal would abandon the long, bipartisan history of federal investment in American innovation:
Republican priorities represent not just a repudiation of President Barack Obama's proposed increases for science -- 10 percent for energy, 13 percent for the NSF, 15 percent for NIST -- but of a bipartisan process started in 2005 to secure a doubling of hard science research.
China is on a roaring path towards single-handedly swamping any hopes of climate stability. The nation's current climate pledges appear lackadaisical rather than ambitious and just as likely to trigger significant rebounds in energy use than real CO2 reductions. The only way to avert potential climate catastrophe is to de-link economic growth from carbon emissions by fueling China -- and the world -- with clean, affordable, and massively scalable energy technologies. Our current menu of technological options is dangerously short, and there's no time to waste: we must make clean energy cheap, and fast.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: when it comes to the global climate challenge, as goes China, so goes the world.
Driving that aphorism home, co2scorecard.org, a not-for-profit project that closely tracks global greenhouse gas emissions, now reports that China's CO2 emissions increased by 906 million tons in 2009 -- the second largest annual increase for any country in recorded history. China's soaring emissions were enough to completely offset the drop in emissions wrought by the economic havoc plaguing much of the Western world (see graphic below).
China's unprecedented surge in CO2
As Goes China, So Goes the World: Soaring CO2 emissions from energy use in China drive global greenhouse gas trends (click image to enlarge; source: co2scorecard.org)
Over the last decade, China's annual emissions of climate destabilizing CO2 jumped by 5 billion tons per year. According to Shakeb Afsah, President and CEO of co2scorecard.org, that's "the highest [increase in annual CO2 output] for a single country in recorded history, representing an average annual emissions increase of almost 12%--more than four times the rate observed [for China] the previous decade."
To put this unprecedented 5 billion ton increase in annual CO2 emissions in context, Mr Afsah and colleague Kendyl Salcito note that during the 14-year long post-war boom period of 1959-1973, during which U.S. CO2 emissions rose each year, America's annual output of CO2 jumped by only 2 billion tons.
As Congress begins to debate whether the DOE deserves a funding increase to support innovation initiatives, a look at its record over the last two years will become a key point of contention. Organizations such as ARPA-E and the Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) will come under particular scrutiny with regard to their cost and effectiveness.
Programs of any nature, whether public or private, will always have a mixed record of successes and failures. It is equally inevitable that proponents and opponents of a given program will focus on certain elements of that program in order to make the strongest possible case for their position. This disagreement can be healthy when it helps policy makers to get a complete and revealing assessment of that program. Once each argument is made in full, a productive debate can begin and the most effective policy can be crafted. However, the increasing polarization between proponents and opponents of government financial support for innovation is, at times, preventing this healthy debate from occurring.
Last week, a group of Senate Democrat leaders unveiled their plan to build off of the innovation-centered budget proposal released by the President two weeks ago, including several important investments in energy innovation, advanced manufacturing, and infrastructure.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced the proposal as an effort to simultaneously "create jobs, promote growth and help America win the future by making smart investments in education, innovation and infrastructure while cutting spending to live within our means."
The Senate Democrats' plan to judiciously invest in innovation and infrastructure while cutting wasteful spending elsewhere in the budget stands in sharp contrast to the Continuing Resolution bill passed by the House this weekend. The House bill budget would cut more than $60 billion from the federal budget to fund the government through FY2011, slashing several important energy innovation initiatives.
The House Republican's Continuing Resolution proposal to fund the government through the rest of Fiscal Year 2011 (FY11, ending Sept. 30) would slash energy innovation investments across federal agencies. The bill, H.R. 1, was introduced last Friday as the GOP's attempt to reduce the deficit and restore "fiscal responsibility," yet would nevertheless strip highly leveraged dollars from important federal programs, while representing merely a drop in the bucket of the $1.3 trillion federal deficit.
The Continuing Resolution as it stands would slice over two billion dollars from the DOE's budget alone and would have detrimental impacts on the state of American energy innovation. The budget cuts would force the layoffs of scientists and engineers, shrink the capabilities of laboratories and universities to perform the most critical cutting-edge energy research projects, and, by cutting funds for highly-leveraged loan guarantee programs, steer private sector funds away from American entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to demonstrate and deploy their innovative energy technologies on American soil.
The Continuing Resolution proposes cuts of at least 17% as compared to FY10 levels in each of the most innovation-oriented offices in the Department of Energy:
The agency which would be hardest hit would be the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which funds both the riskiest and most transformative, early-stage energy innovation projects, and would lose a staggering 75% of its budget under H.R. 1.
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), which was responsible for roughly 34% of the DOE's energy innovation investments in 2010, would lose 35% of its FY10 budget.
The Office of Science, which funds critical early-stage energy innovation research, would see a 20% decline in its budget. Office of Science devoted 20% of its 2010 budget to energy innovation funding, while supporting additional fundamental physical science research.
The Office of Nuclear Energy, which devoted 41% of its funds to energy innovation projects in 2010, would lose 23% of its budget.
Meanwhile, the Office of Fossil Energy would see an 11% reduction in its budget. 43% of the office's 2010 budget was devoted to energy innovation efforts.
Today's E&E News covered the release of the Breakthrough Institute's most recent report, "Energy Emergence: Rebound and Backfire as Emergent Phenomena", pointing to the report's conclusion that "increasing the efficiency of our power systems and gadgets will not necessarily yield great reductions in energy use and could lead to using even more juice". The article is excerpted below (subscription required).
In a new review of energy efficiency literature, researchers at the Oakland, Calif.-based think tank found that a "rebound effect" means that implementing low-cost efficiency improvements can increase overall energy consumption and can even lead to a higher net energy use in what they describe as a "backfire effect."
"The implications are serious for climate and energy policy," wrote Michael Shellenberger, the institute's president, in a description of the study. "Energy efficiency measures that pay for themselves are good for the economy but are not guaranteed to reduce energy consumption or emissions, and may in fact increase them."
The study's conclusion is not that policymakers should steer clear of efficiency improvements, which the institute's researchers say are good for economic growth, but that such improvements should not be counted on to reduce energy use or associated emissions.
The study points to several mechanisms that contribute to the rebound effect. More efficient use of energy leads to higher production, with that increased economic output tied to higher energy use overall. Efficiency also leads to the substitution of energy inputs for others like labor and capital with a resulting increase in energy use.
Over at FrumForum, Republicans for Environmental Protection's Jim Dipeso argues that while the GOP's budget plans aim to slash energy innovation spending across-the-board, there's a more productive way to address the fiscal deficit, specifically, the way outlined by the report "Post-Partisan Power", published by a coalition of scholars at the Breakthrough Institute, Brookings Institution, and American Enterprise Institute.
[The House Republican's] proposed budget resolution, setting spending levels for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, has knives out for energy science and technology research - for example, a 35 percent chop from 2010 levels for energy efficiency and renewables, and a 15% cut for nuclear R&D.
Yes, a fair argument could be made that all federal programs need to share the pain, but energy science and technology research doesn't amount to a teaspoon in a hurricane. All of the some $5 billion allocated to energy R&D each year could be zeroed out and the accountants at Treasury would hardly notice.
More importantly, energy R&D is long-range tech development that likely would not be picked up by private sector CFOs seeking more near-term returns for their risk capital. Once promising lines of inquiry are bunged up by federal budget politics, innovations that might have spawned new industries and smarter ways to use America's energy resources would fall by the wayside.
President Obama released his fiscal year 2012 budget proposal this morning, a solid endorsement of the necessity to increase public investment in energy innovation amidst proposals to indiscriminately cut discretionary spending across all federal programs. The President's budget proposal builds off of the innovation-centered economic growth strategy presented in the State of the Union Address last month and the White House Innovation Report released two weeks ago.
On the energy investment front, the budget proposal aims to increase the DOE's budget by 11.8 percent over FY2010's current appropriation levels, or $3.1 billion dollars, a comparatively small increase in an overall budget proposal of $3.7 trillion that proposes reducing the projected deficit by roughly $110 billion per year for the next ten years.
This budget increase is a vital step towards meeting the scale of the energy innovation challenge long-underlined by the Breakthrough Institute and by a general consensus of leading energy innovation experts, think tanks, and policymakers.
However, not all of these increases lie with funding for energy innovation. Using the Energy Innovation Tracker, a tool that compiles federal energy-innovation funding across nine federal agencies for the years 2009-2011, inclusive of ARRA, we've broken out investments in energy innovation (defined in the tracker as Basic Science, RD&D, and Education investments) from general energy investments in measures such as deployment, facility construction, and program management.
In a recent column, Innovation Conservative David Brooks calls out both Democrats and Republicans as perpetuating "mirages" for advocating cuts to discretionary spending as deficit reduction measures, and argues that those advocating for increased investments in productive areas need to band together to address entitlements, as growing entitlement spending will impose constraints on those investments in the future.
On Monday, I appeared on an hour-long webinar hosted by theEnergyCollective.com on China and Energy, diving into questions of energy innovation, competitiveness, and the challenge of meeting China's soaring demand.
Carolyn Bartholomew, a commissioner on the US-China Economic Security and Review Commission joined myself and moderator Marc Gunther to dive into the issues at stake.
We discussed how China can be both the world leader in clean and dirty energy, simultaneously leading the world in the production of clean energy technologies and global contributions to climate-destabilizing carbon dioxide and coal consumption; the economic stakes of the global clean energy race and China's rising prowess in clean tech innovation and production; and the huge scale of energy demand in the rapidly developing nation.
Listen to the audio - "China and Energy" webinar, 1/31/11: (length 01:01:10)
China will be the second largest global R&D investor in 2011 while U.S. investment in R&D will slow, according to a new survey by Battelle and R&D Magazine.
Growth in U.S. R&D investment will slow this year, while China is expected to eclipse Japan for second place among all nations in R&D investment, according to a new analysis released by Battelle and R&D Magazine.
The United States is still far and away the global leader in terms of total investment, and is expected to invest $405 billion in 2011. The Battelle team predicts that increases in U.S. R&D investment will slow to 2.4% in 2011, however, equal to the median global rate.
China has increased R&D investment by 10% each year for the last 10 years, sustaining this rapid growth rate through the global recession. Battelle estimates that China will invest $154 billion in R&D in 2011, passing Japan's $144 billion.
While the United States continues to lead in overall funding, in the last decade R&D has become increasingly globalized, as foreign governments boost their investment in R&D and innovation capacity, and multinational corporations have decentralized R&D activities across both advanced and emerging economies.
With last night's State of the Union address, President Obama has shifted the debate from the partisan climate wars to an expansive energy innovation policy which has the potential to draw support from across the political spectrum.
With last night's State of the Union address, President Obama has shifted the debate from the partisan climate wars to an expansive energy innovation policy which has the potential to draw support from across the political spectrum.
"In embracing breakthrough innovation for solar and nuclear power alike -- for economic competitiveness rather than climate reasons -- President Obama took a bold first step toward a national commitment to energy innovation that is in the long tradition of bi-partisan support for science and technology," wrote Breakthrough Institute co-founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus in a statement. "While the road forward will not be easy, at least it is one America has traveled before."
In a State of the Union speech framed centrally around restoring America's global economic leadership, President Obama argued forcefully for increasing federal investment in energy innovation, declaring that "breakthrough" technologies have driven decades of innovation that "created new industries and millions of new jobs."
Obama's speech was a rejection of proposals to cut federal spending across the board, as he finally made the case before the American people about why public support for innovation is critical for the country's long-term prosperity:
In tonight's State of the Union Speech, President Obama will call for increased federal investment in education, science, technology and infrastructure. In doing so, he will join a long list of Republican Presidents who recognized that such investments are key to America's economic vitality and a hallmark of true fiscal responsibility. The question now is whether today's Republican leaders will don this mantle, or will continue to recklessly pursue cuts to America's most productive public investments?
Tonight, President Obama is prepared to call for renewed federal investment in infrastructure, research, education, and clean energy technology in his State of the Union Address, according to his advisers. He is likely to argue that new productive investments in education and technology are central to generating jobs and laying a new foundation for economic prosperity. Indeed, the long, bipartisan history of American innovation is one of federal investment in new technologies--even in tough economic times.
But as Republicans in Congress continue their campaign to cut everything in sight (except for what might reduce the growing federal debt -- defense and entitlement spending), with seemingly little regard for the difference between spending and smart investment, it may be difficult for Obama to enact policies that could seriously address the deficit by growing the economy.
Update 1/31/11: If you missed Michael Shellenberger, Ted Nordhaus, and Steve Hayward at Duke last week, check out the video of their full lecture, "Hitting the Reset Button on Energy Policy," below:
Next week Breakthrough's Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus begin a university speaking tour focused on taking a look at energy policy beyond the climate wars. The duo will discuss "Post Partisan Power," an October 2010 report co-authored by think tanks on the left, right, and center, which calls for $25 billion in federal funding to accelerate energy innovation.
The first leg of the tour will take them to Duke and NYU, along with Steve Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute, a co-author of the "Post-Partisan Power" report. Later in February, Ted and Michael will extend their tour with an event at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
On January 26, the two stop at Yale for a special retrospective on "The Long Death of Environmentalism." Michael and Ted last visited Yale in 2005 to defend their thesis that the modern environmental movement was incapable of effectively addressing the planet's most serious ecological challenge, global warming, and will return to discuss the evolution of the environmental movement and where we stand today.
Bucking the conventional D.C. wisdom of the day, Senator Kerry delivered a rousing speech Tuesday calling for a major bipartisan investment strategy for infrastructure, technology, research, and education to keep the United States competitive.
On Tuesday, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) delivered a major speech in Washington that may be remembered as one of the most important political responses to the Tucson shooting and as a powerful new post-partisan vision for restoring American vitality and leadership in the 21st century.
As Ezra Klein of Washington Post noted, "Frankly, it's the speech President Obama should be giving." In this moment of national reflection, the speech should be read by Americans of all political stripes and serve as a model for Democratic and Republican leaders alike.
In short, Senator Kerry argued that today's violent and divisive political dialogue -- which may or may not have contributed to the event in Tucson -- is damaging U.S. global leadership and preventing us from making the critical investments we need to stay prosperous and secure. Unless Democratic and Republican leaders can wake up and come together around a new agenda for strategic public investments -- including infrastructure, technology, research, and education -- we will not be able to maintain our place in the world.
Third Way's Josh Freed takes a look at what Republican budget cuts might mean for America's ability to compete in the burgeoning clean energy sector. It's not pretty.
Over at the Huffington Post, Josh Freed, the Director of Third Way's Clean Energy Program, takes a look at what the Republican plan to cut 20% of all non-defense discretionary funding might look like if spread equally across clean energy programs. It's not pretty:
-- A $1.6 billion cut in the federal loan guarantee program would potentially cripple the much-needed nuclear renaissance at a time when China is planning a five-fold expansion over the next decade. Without loan guarantees, it's unlikely we'd be building first nuclear power plant in the US in almost 30 years, and creating as many as 3,500 jobs, in Georgia today.
-- $60 million less for ARPA-E's already meager $300 million budget, gutting funding for advanced energy storage, next generation nuclear power and micro-battery technology that could also be used by the US military.
-- Eliminating almost $500 million in grants to companies innovating in renewable energy, advanced vehicle technology, and battery storage. This could kill emerging clean energy businesses that have the potential to become the 21st century's Google, General Electric or Exxon.
-- Slicing $20 million from R&D investments to schools like Purdue University, Penn State, University of Wisconsin, and Iowa State University, which are developing the next generation of innovators and ideas that could spawn new businesses and jobs across the U.S.
As Freed notes, even well known and well respected conservative commentators like George Will are warning Congressional Republicans to exchange their budget hatchets for scalpels and preserve or even strengthen key science and technology investments.
Clean energy is certainly one of the global growth sectors that could help lead an industrial revival in the United States. But Republican budget cutting mania could hamper U.S. competitiveness in the sector even as other nations like China, Japan, and South Korea increase their investments. Will Innovation Conservatives be able to forestall such an outcome?
Nobel Laureate physicist Dr. Burton Richter discusses the three dimensions of the global energy challenge - economy, security, and environment - in his keynote at the "Energy Innovation 2010" conference in December.
"Energy Innovation 2010" keynote presentation delivered by Nobel laureate physicist Dr. Burton Richter on December 15, 2010.
(Richter's Keynote begins at 5:56 in the video below)
I have been asked by the organizers to be provocative at this discussion of energy innovation - the more provocative the better, I was told. So far, the talks have focused on the need for innovation to get the technologies of the future developed and deployed so that the issue of climate change can be effectively addressed. We all know that the country is not getting the action on the Federal front that the issue warrants, and thinking about how we might do better leads me to three questions.
1. Have we focused so exclusively on climate change as a justification for action on energy that we have excluded potential allies?
2. Have we emphasized ultra-green technologies that are not yet ready for the big time, and so had our desire for the perfect drive out the available good?
3. Have we pushed policies that are so narrowly targeted as to prevent much larger and less costly emissions reductions to be made in the nearer term than have been made with the renewables?
On December 15th 2010, hundreds of leading thinkers, scientists, public officials, and innovators gathered in Washington, DC for the Energy Innovation 2010 Conference to initiate a new conversation on a new energy policy paradigm for the 21st century
For 35 years, government and the market have been trying and failing to get energy policy right. Congress has failed to pass large-scale clean energy and climate legislation, while China and other competitors are moving aggressively to take the lead in new energy technology. And the market has failed to create needed low-carbon technology on its own. Meanwhile, the nation's dependence on oil and coal deepens and global temperatures continue to rise. To address these issues, we need to get past the old energy policy paradigm - and we just may be turning the corner.
On December 15th 2010, hundreds of leading thinkers, scientists, public officials, and innovators gathered in Washington, DC for the Energy Innovation 2010 Conference to initiate a new conversation on a new energy policy paradigm: one that recognizes the central role of innovation in resolving the world's looming energy challenges and boosting American competitiveness. Climate change aside, we can't rely on carbon-based fuels for the next 150 years the way we did for the last 150. And we can't create the transformational energy innovations we need without putting innovation front and center.
"Energy Innovation 2010" merely begins a new national energy dialog that must continue well into the coming years. Breakthrough Institute and our partners will continue to spearhead this conversation as we seek new strategies to address the multifaceted energy challenges facing America and the world.
In case you missed the conference, held before a packed house at the National Press Club, or if you simply want to revisit the top notch presentations delivered throughout the packed day, videos from the full conference can be viewed below.
From hybrid crops to blockbuster drugs, nuclear power to wind power, and microchips to the Internet, government support was critical to the productive public-private partnerships that spawned so many revolutionary American technologies.
This presentation was delivered by Jesse Jenkins (Director of Energy and Climate Policy, Breakthrough Institute) and Daniel Sarewitz (Director, Center for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, ASU; Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow) at the Energy Innovation 2010 Conference, December 15th, 2010.
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Apple, Amgen and General Electric. Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell.
We are all familiar with these genius inventors and titans of industry.
Yet most of us remain unaware of the almost constant presence of a silent partner in American innovation: the federal government.
We might recall something about microchips and the space race, or know that the National Institutes of Health funds research into new drugs and treatments.
But most of us remain unaware of the depth and breadth of government support for technology innovation.
As we gather today to consider how to drive forward the dramatic innovation needed to deliver cheap, clean and massively scalable energy sources to power world, we would do well to pause and take a look back at the United State's long history of limited but energetic public investment in breakthrough technologies.
Where do good technologies come from? The history of American innovation shows that an active partnership between the public and private sectors has been key to developing breakthrough technologies, which have driven generations of economic prosperity. In an updated report, the Breakthrough Institute explores this partnership through a set of case studies in American innovation.
Driving directions from your iPhone. The cancer treatments that save countless lives. The seed hybrids that have slashed global hunger. A Skype conversation while flying on a Virgin Airlines jet across the continent in just five hours.
Where did these everyday miracles come from?
As soon as the question is asked we know to suspect that the answer is not as simple as Apple, Amgen, or General Electric. We might recall something about microchips and the Space Race, or know that the National Institutes of Health funds research into new drugs and treatments.
But most of us remain unaware of the depth and breadth of American government support for technology and innovation. Our gratitude at being able to video chat with our children from halfway around the world (if we feel gratitude at all) is directed at Apple, not the Defense Department. When our mother's Neupogen works to fight her cancer, we thank Amgen, not NIH or NSF.
By Rob Atkinson, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger
For forty years, presidents and policymakers have promised and planned for a new energy future just over the horizon. While the rationales have varied - reducing dependence on imported oil, stopping global warming, reducing air pollution, creating clean energy jobs - the song has largely remained the same: America has most, if not all, of the technologies needed today to make a quick and relatively painless transition away from fossil fuels.
Yet America is more dependent upon fossil fuels than ever before. U.S. oil consumption rose from 15 to 20 million barrels a day between 1970 and today, while coal still provides about 50 percent of our electricity. U.S. carbon emissions continue to rise unabated, as efforts to cap them have repeatedly foundered in the face of daunting political, economic, and technological obstacles. And renewable technologies like wind and solar only meet a tiny fraction of America's energy needs despite several decades of efforts to subsidize their deployment.
When experts convene in Washington next week to discuss energy policy at the Energy Innovation 2010 conference, they will do so in the wake of yet another failed federal effort to pass legislation to support a transition away from fossil fuel-based energy.
Breakthrough Institute and other leading think tanks sponsor day-long conference rethinking energy innovation in the United States: getting to scale, making clean energy cheap, securing American leadership.
After
two years of often-tumultuous debate in Congress, the national debate
over energy and climate change policy has now been altered: cap and
trade policy efforts have run aground in Congress, perhaps fatally, and
Republicans are ascendant, reshaping the national political landscape.
Meanwhile, with economic recovery the top priority for the public and
policymakers alike, America's clean tech competitors are surging ahead,
raising the stakes for energy policy.
Against this backdrop,
support is growing on both right and left for new national investments
in energy innovation that can help address some of the most urgent
imperatives of our time - renewing the economy, improving energy
security and public health, and overcoming key environmental challenges.
A growing chorus of voices thus counsels a renewed national commitment to develop breakthrough energy technologies - and to the reform of America's energy innovation system itself.
In
recent months, energy experts have advised policymakers to: take a page
from the nation's long history of successful military research and
procurement; build on the success of agricultural research stations and
the National Institutes of Health by establishing new innovation
institutes and clusters nationwide; promote the right mix of both
competition and collaboration to spur innovation and productive
knowledge spillover; reform energy subsidies to reward innovation; and
restructure business taxes to promote investment in the building blocks
of an innovation economy.
On December 15th, a group of America's leading policy think tanks will host a day-long conference in Washington D.C. to rethink energy innovation.
Energy Innovation 2010,
held at the National Press Club, will bring together leading experts
from government, think tanks, academia, and business to ask hard
questions about how energy innovation efforts can be brought to scale,
how the innovation system must be restructured and reformed, and how to
renew the kind of active partnerships between the public and private
sectors that were responsible for so much of America's prior
technological innovation and economic strength.
Breakthrough Institute is proud to organize and sponsor this free, day-long conference, along with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and with sponsoring partners the American Enterprise Institute, Third Way, Clean Air Task
Force, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Securing
America's Future Energy, and the Brookings Institution. We are pleased to
welcome TheEnergyCollective.com and Yale Environment 360 as media sponsors for the event.
Facing renewed international challenges to American technological and economic leadership, the United States "cannot cut back on those investments that have the biggest impact on our economic growth," including science, technology and education, President Obama declared at a speech in Winston-Salem, North Carolina this week.
Echoing his Secretary of Energy and chief science and technology advisers (as well as a pairof familiar op eds from 2008), President Obama told audiences in North Carolina today that the United States faces a new "Sputnik moment" - a challenge to American technology and economic leadership akin to the global race to dominate nascent aerospace, computing, and information technology fields during the Cold War Era.
The United States responded to the 1957 launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite with a series of major investments in science and education, including the National Defense Education Act and the creation of the Apollo Space Program. Maintaining economic competitiveness in the 21st century similarly demands a renewed national commitment to invest in the building blocks of a dynamic innovation economy, the President said.
Research and innovation on energy storage and transmission technology must proceed in parallel as the nation ramps up use of renewable energy, according to a new report from the American Physical Society.
New innovations in energy storage, transmission, and the integration of variable electricity sources are necessary to enable renewable energy sources to contribute significantly to the U.S. energy supply, according to a new report from the American Physical Society.
Establishing national policies to spur the deployment and adoption of renewable electricity sources, such as wind and solar power, are important, but the scientists warn that research and innovation must also proceed in parallel on better energy storage technologies, new strategies for integrating the varying and intermittent output of these energy sources, and improved technologies for the long-distance transmission of renewable electricity.
A new report by Third Way and an op-ed by three U.S. Senators add to the gathering consensus for a technology and innovation-led strategy for clean energy progress and economic renewal.
America can recapture the lead in the global clean energy race if it commits itself to a major public-private effort to spur clean energy innovation.
That's the message of a new report released today by Democratic think tank Third Way. The report, "Creating a Clean Energy Century," is the first in a series of reports from Third Way's new project on energy innovation, co-chaired by U.S. Senators Mark Udall (D-CO), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).
The report begins with clear-cut premises. Clean energy is still too expensive and unreliable relative to fossil fuels. Other countries are moving toward clean energy more quickly than the United States. Countries that are able to make clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels will gain the greatest economic benefits, by capturing more of the rapidly growing domestic and global markets for clean energy.
Over at theEnergyCollective.com, Tyler Hamilton dives into the International Energy Agency's newly released forecast of global energy trends (exec sum here [pdf]) focusing on the disparity in global subsidies for renewables and fossil fuels:
The International Energy Agency put out its annual World Energy Outlook today and urges strong and sustained government support for the deployment of renewable energy. The agency pegs 2009 subsidies for renewables at $57 billion and calls for that to increase to $205 billion by 2035. "The share of modern renewable energy sources, including sustainable hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, modern biomass and marine energy, in global primary energy use triples between 2008 and 2035 and their combined share of total primary energy demand increases from 7 per cent to 14 per cent," according to the agency. Fossil fuel subsidies stood at $312 billion in 2009 and the agency urged that they be eliminated to accelerate the transition to renewables.
I applaud the IEA's call for major public investments in clean energy RD&D and deployment and certainly support the agency's calls to phase out fossil fuel subsidies -- excepting where doing so would expand the already deplorable share of the global population (about 2.4 billion) locked in energy poverty.
But while Hamilton and others focus on the disparity between total subsidies for fossil energy and renewables, the IEA figures are actually a stark reminder of the major price gap that persists between mature fossil energy sources and newer, costlier clean energy alternatives.
Neal Lane, of Rice University former science advisor to President Bill Clinton, showed the slide above in a recent talk at the University of Colorado (which he provided to me today, Thanks Neal!). It shows a number of technologies somehow connected to federal innovation investments and their relationship to the iPod, discussed in an earlier post today.
Apple has long boasted of its culture of innovation, and how this led to such products as the original Mac and the iPod. However, it turns out that, at least in the case of the iPod, Apple had a hidden ally: the US government. During a speech at Tuskegee University, President (and iPod user) George W. Bush told his audience, "the government funded research in microdrive storage, electrochemistry and signal compression. They did so for one reason: It turned out that those were the key ingredients for the development of the iPod." While we have to gratefully acknowledge the efforts of government agencies such as DARPA in some of the fields mentioned by the President, we also feel obligated to point out the accomplishments of private companies in the US and abroad, including IBM, Hitachi and Toshiba -- not to mention the Fraunhofer Institute, which developed the original MP3 codec, and codeveloped (with Sony, AT&T and others) the AAC format used by Apple in the iPod.
In a recent interview with NPR's Robert Siegel, Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke Jr. discusses why cap and trade policy collapsed under the weight of its political and practical limitations. He proposes a new path forward focused on making clean energy cheap, instead of continually trying to make fossils fuels more expensive.
Below is an excerpt from the interview transcript. Click here to listen to the full interview and read the entire transcript:
The United States and Australia have inked a new partnership to pursue joint solar energy research designed to make solar energy cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the announcement in Melbourne on Sunday, with the Australian government set to commit up to $50 million towards the program.
Ms Gillard said the aim was to make solar power as cheap as conventional energy sources.
"One of the greatest barriers to a broader commercial take up of solar power is its cost and that is specifically what this joint research initiative will address," Ms Gillard told reporters.
"The joint project with the United States is part of an aggressive effort to bring the sales price of solar technology down by two to four times."
Ms Clinton said the program aimed to make solar power competitive with conventional energy sources by 2015.
The price had dropped by 50 per cent in the past three years but there was more work to be done, she said.
"Under this initiative our two governments will share both the costs and the benefits of research and development which will speed up innovation," she said.
Secretary Clinton also pledged a $500,000 grant from the U.S. State Department to support a global survey to identify opportunities to reuse carbon dioxide emitted by power plant and industrial processes, headed up by the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, a recently established research center co-funded by the Australian government.
Solar Powerhouse? Solar irradiation in Australia is among the highest in the world, as this color-coded map from NASA illustrates (darker red areas have the most incoming solar energy). Source: The Age/Reuters
Australia, with perhaps the greatest solar energy potential in the world, has an obvious interest in pursuing affordable, scalable solar power solutions, and has also maintained several long-standing solar research efforts. Can the two new partners accelerate efforts to make solar energy cheap?
In an effort to develop a truly effective post-cap and trade climate strategy, policy is not the only aspect that requires deep reflection - philanthropists, too, must reconsider the best way to channel grants in order to successfully fund solutions to climate and energy challenges. Breakthrough's Director of Climate and Energy Policy Jesse Jenkins recently spoke to a foundation about re-thinking philanthropic efforts in a post-cap and trade policy environment, offering insight into how policy makers, activists, and philanthropists, alike, must re-orient away from the focus on limits and toward an approach that harnesses human ingenuity to directly confront the scale of the global climate and energy challenge.
Breakthrough Institute Chairman Ted Nordhaus gives the keynote address at the World Climate Solutions conference at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, the very building where international climate negotiations collapsed less than one year ago.
In late September, Breakthrough Institute Chairman Ted Nordhaus gave the keynote address at the World Climate Solutions conference--northern Europe's biggest annual clean tech event. The conference was held in Copenhagen, Denmark in the Bella Center, the very place where the international climate negotiations collapsed less than one year ago.
Nordhaus was introduced by Anders Eldrup, CEO of DONG energy. What follows is a video of the introduction and speech, as well as each speaker's full remarks.
Despite rising national debts, would national governments be wise to borrow today to fund investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and innovation to be enjoyed by -- and paid back by -- a richer, more well-off generation tomorrow?
Here's an interesting argument from our friends across the pond at the UK-focused Political Climate blog, making the case that despite rising deficit concerns and austerity measures in the UK and elsewhere, borrowing from the future may still actually be an appropriate way to pay for clean energy innovation today:
Against this background, it may sound mad to argue for more public borrowing in order to pay for investments in low carbon technologies and infrastructure, but that is what I am going to do in this post.
Let's start with the rationale. ... The starting point is that in advanced economies successive generations tend to get better off over time. For example, at the depths of the 1930s depression Keynes observed that despite the general gloom, he was confident that 100 years in the future, people might be eight times better off in real terms. And indeed average GDP per capita in the UK is now already about 5 times what it was in the 1930s. By extension, we would normally expect future generations to be better off than us in GDP terms.
... [Furthermore, if] we in this generation mitigate climate change, we will allow future generations to have a higher standard of living than they would have if we did nothing. We are very slowly beginning to do this, with policies being introduced to encourage us to invest less in conventional capital (e.g. fossil fuel power stations) and more in investments that effectively maintain natural capital (like renewable energy).
At the moment we are paying for these more expensive investments through reduced consumption, in the form of higher energy bills. If instead we were to borrow a certain amount of money from future generations (who will have to repay through their taxes) and use this money to pay the extra cost of renewables, carbon capture and storage and so on, then the theory says it should be possible to make both our generation and future generations better off. ...
Support for a technology-first approach to America's energy and climate needs is rapidly growing in the wake of the October 14 release of the "Post-Partisan Power" proposal by scholars at the Brookings Institution, AEI and Breakthrough Institute. Here is a sampling of the many reactions and widespread discussion generated by the report...
Joshua Green, Atlantic Monthly & Boston Globe: "Unlike most of what gets introduced just before an election, this was not a soon-to-be-forgotten political ploy, but a long-term project to accomplish what Congress and the president could not: put the country on the path to a clean energy future."
David Leonhardt, New York Times: [T]he death of cap and trade doesn't have to mean the death of climate policy. The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It's an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives -- most of whom opposed cap and trade."
Tim Mak, Frum Forum (a site started by former Bush speechwriter David Frum): "If Americans want to fight the challenges of climate change and reduce their dependence on foreign oil, this piece sets a good baseline for discussion."
Ezra Klein, Washington Post: "It's not that PPP is a sure thing, nor that it will pass Congress anytime soon. The Tea Party Republicans will need to sow their wild and crazy oats for awhile before they feel any need to tack to the center. But when they do, they aren't going to embrace cap and trade. They might, on the other hand, embrace a limited and direct approach to energy innovation."
Michael Levi, Council on Foreign Relations: [T]his idea may well make a lot of sense... most of the paper is actually a smart and thoughtful discussion of how to do energy innovation policy right".
Kirsten Powers, New York Post: " If America wants to remain the leader of the world economy, Washington has to attack this issue."
Bryan Walsh, TIME Magazine: "A truly bipartisan approach on energy and climate won't be easy--sometimes, especially right before an election, it seems completely impossible--but it's the only approach we can hope for, if we still hope."
Nature: "[G]iven the lack of consensus in other areas, long-term R&D intended to bring the cost of clean energy down might well be one area where lawmakers will be able to agree."
Case Western professor Jonathan Adler writes: "While not without flaws, the proposal represents a serious alternative to politically-moribund cap-and-trade proposals and the regulate-everything mindset that produced the Waxman-Markey bill."
Newsweek: "Cap-and-trade is on life support, but its weakness is giving other ideas room to breathe. Emerging proposals focus on investment in clean energy, pitched to the public with a narrative that omits a doomsday point of view about global warming and instead focuses on more practical considerations like job creation or the need to stop certain types of pollution."
All that convergence around a politically centrist, technology-first approach alarmed some climate warriors on left and right.
Climate skeptic Steven Milloy of Green Hell blog (and Junkscience.com) wrote: "The left isn't oscillating at all. They are focused on establishing a one-world socialist paradise. Whatever path gets the comrades there, they'll follow. Global warming has just been there most successful gambit to date."
Said Grist.org's David Roberts: "The Republican Party don't want to spend government money on clean energy, Hayward notwithstanding."
Joe Romm, ClimateProgress.org: [It] should also be obvious we're not going to get a massive federal clean energy program either."
Not all long-time climate warriors were sour on the proposal.
While EDF chief economist Nathaniel Keohane reiterates that "we need both cap and trade and sustained investment in clean energy R&D," he went on to tell the New York Times' David Leonhardt, "if it turns out that we can't get cap and trade in the near term, we need R&D investment all the more."
Harvard's Robert Stavins still insists "there is no other feasible approach that can provide meaningful emissions reductions" beyond cap and trade, but he acknowledges: "New path-breaking technologies will be needed to address climate change, and public support for private-sector or public-sector R&D will be crucial to meet this need."
MIT's Michael Greenstone, a long-time cap and trade supporter, isn't so sure about the real-world viability of the policy he once advocated. "The first best hope was getting a world price for carbon, and that now looks remote in the coming years," he told Leonhardt. "But there are ways in which the other options may be preferable to a price only in the U.S." Greenstone endorses the need for $25 billion in clean energy R&D investments and rightly explains, "All the action is really going to be occurring in developing countries" who will need clean and affordable energy to power their economic growth.
In a second post, Washington Post's Ezra Klein looks the realpolitik in the face as well and concludes: "The best of all worlds would've been a price on carbon married to a big investment in clean-energy research. But this is not the best of all worlds. This is our world. And this [technology-first proposal] ... might be our last, best chance to protect it."
Update The Washington Post editorial page endorses Post-Partisan Power's call for a bipartisan energy innovation strategy, noting: "Even if cap-and-trade had passed, the logic goes, the government would still have had to invest in scientific research to make green energy affordable; might as well make those investments, anyway ... incremental action is better than none."
When policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth, economic growth will win out every time. Climate policies should flow with the current of public opinion rather than against it, and efforts to sell the public on policies that will create short-term economic discomfort cannot succeed if that discomfort is perceived to be too great. Calls for asceticism and sacrifice are a nonstarter.
The "iron law" thus presents a boundary condition on policy design that is every bit as limiting as is the second law of thermodynamics, and it holds everywhere around the world, in rich and poor countries alike. It says that even if people are willing to bear some costs to reduce emissions (and experience shows that they are), they are willing to go only so far...
To succeed, any policies focused on decarbonizing economies will necessarily have to offer short-term benefits that are in some manner proportional to the short-term costs. In practice, this means that efforts to make dirty energy appreciably more expensive will face limited success.
...
The unavoidable reality is that policy makers and those they represent are committed to sustaining economic growth, bringing populations out of poverty, and expanding access to energy. Emissions reduction goals will not be achieved by policies that seek to stimulate innovation by constricting, much less by reducing, economic activity.
Yesterday, scholars from the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Breakthrough Institute released a joint report proposing a post-partisan way forward on climate and energy policy that moves beyond the framework of cap and trade. The report, "Post-Partisan Power," ignited a firestorm of discussion.
To answer some of major questions about the report, E&E News OnPoint TV host Monica Trauzzi invited Breakthrough Institute Director of Climate and Energy Policy Jesse Jenkins and Brookings' Senior Fellow and Director of Policy for the Metropolitan Policy Program to join her show.
Throughout American history, federal investments in areas like science and technology have been a long-term driver of national prosperity under presidents both Democrat and Republican.
Throughout American history, strategic government investments in areas like education, technology, infrastructure, and energy catalyzed the entrepreneurship and innovation that has paved the way for so many of the great American technological and economic successes of the 20th century. In the words of conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, the American story is one of "limited but energetic governments that used aggressive federal power to promote growth."
The new report calls for increasing federal innovation investment from roughly $4 today to $25 billion annually, and using military procurement, new, disciplined deployment incentives, and public-private hubs to achieve both incremental improvements and breakthroughs in clean energy technologies. The authors point to America's long-history of bi-partisan support for innovation.
Writes David Leonhardt in today's New York Times, "the death of cap and trade doesn't have to mean the death of climate policy. The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It's an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives -- most of whom opposed cap and trade."
Mark Muro of Brookings tells Politico the proposal's four parts "are broadly popular, provide a very broad and appealing American vision of economic transformation and are certainly far more doable than a global pricing system at this point." Added Steve Hayward of American Enterprise Institute, "The entire climate and energy agenda that we've been talking about for several years now has hit a dead end, so it's time to hit the reset button."
The new report calls for increasing federal innovation investment from roughly $4 today to $25 billion annually, and using military procurement, new, disciplined deployment incentives, and public-private hubs to achieve both incremental improvements and breakthroughs in clean energy technologies. The authors point to America's long-history of bi-partisan support for innovation.
Writes David Leonhardt in today's New York Times, "the death of cap and trade doesn't have to mean the death of climate policy. The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It's an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives -- most of whom opposed cap and trade."
Mark Muro of Brookings tells Politico the proposal's four parts "are broadly popular, provide a very broad and appealing American vision of economic transformation and are certainly far more doable than a global pricing system at this point." Added Steve Hayward of American Enterprise Institute, "The entire climate and energy agenda that we've been talking about for several years now has hit a dead end, so it's time to hit the reset button."
As the Times's Leonhardt explains the new post-partisan proposal, and the growing energy innovation consensus surrounding it, "reflect[s] the political reality that raising the cost of dirty energy is unpopular, especially when the economy is so weak. Finding the money to make clean energy cheaper, even when government budgets are tight, will probably be an easier sell."
While cap and trade legislation became embattled by partisan wars over climate science and compromised to the point of inefficacy, Leonhardt reminds readers that there is a successor strategy waiting, if one only turns to the long, bipartisan history of American technological leadership.
"[H]istory shows that government-directed research can work," Leohardt writes.
"The Defense Department created the Internet, as part of a project to build a communications system safe from nuclear attack. The military helped make possible radar, microchips and modern aviation, too. The National Institutes of Health spawned the biotechnology industry. All those investments have turned into engines of job creation, even without any new tax on the technologies they replaced.
"We didn't tax typewriters to get the computer. We didn't tax telegraphs to get telephones," Breakthrough Institute's Michael Shellenberger told the Times. "When you look at the history of technological innovation, you find that state investment is everywhere."
And in that history, lies a new path forward to deliver clean cheap energy, economic productivity, and national prosperity.
By Steven F. Hayward, American Enterprise Institute; Mark Muro, Brookings Institution; Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, Breakthrough Institute
If ever there were a time to hit the reset button on energy policy, it is today. Congress is set to adjourn without taking substantive, long-term action on either climate or energy. While conservatives may be celebrating the death of cap and trade, the truth is that the right's longstanding hopes for the expansion of nuclear power and oil production have also run aground, foundering on the high cost of constructing new nuclear plants and the impacts of the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, energy policy is at a standstill, despite overwhelming public support for accelerating the move to clean, affordable energy sources and tapping fast-growing clean energy industries to create jobs and wealth in the United States.
At a time of continued economic distress, America should embrace regional innovation clusters as a new paradigm for collaboration, innovation, and economic prosperity.
As new reports confirm a stark decline in long-term U.S. economic competitiveness, the United States needs a new economic paradigm to refocus economic policy and rebuild its damaged economy. That new paradigm should focus on strengthening America's "regional innovation clusters," according to a new report authored by Mark Muro and Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.
First defined by Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter twenty years ago, clusters--geographic concentrations of interconnected firms, suppliers, educational institutions and other supporting organizations--have staged a comeback in economic policymaking at different levels of government and are now widely viewed as important to accelerate innovation and therefore economic growth. According to the new study, The New Cluster Moment: How Regional Innovation Clusters Can Foster the Next Economy, clusters offer an attractive new economic paradigm for three particular reasons.
A new report by the National Academies paints a grim picture of U.S. economic competitiveness in the 21st century knowledge economy. Major and sustained public investments in education, research, and innovation are key to reversing a long-term decline in global competitiveness.
A new National Academies report released last week confirms what many concerned with U.S. economic competitiveness have warily suspected: America's competitive standing in the 21st century global economy has deteriorated markedly in the last five years.
The outlook has only worsened since the publication of the original report, according to the Gathering Storm committee, which includes leading academics, CEOs, and science and technology experts. For those concerned about America's ability to create lasting, high-paying, high-quality jobs in a time of economic distress, the report's conclusion is disheartening:
"America's competitive position in the world now faces even greater challenges, exacerbated by the economic turmoil of the last few years and by the rapid and persistent worldwide advanced of education, knowledge, innovation, investment, and industrial infrastructure. Indeed the governments of many other countries in Europe and Asia have themselves acknowledged and aggressively pursued many of the key recommendations of Rising Above the Gathering Storm, often more vigorously than has the U.S."
The failure of cap and trade and Kyoto has driven many on both the right and left toward a new consensus energy policy framework centered on making clean energy cheap. As a new energy innovation agenda is debated and refined in the coming months, true clean energy and climate progress may yet be realized.
On the right, Bjorn Lomborg, long a leading skeptic of efforts to address climate change, has wholeheartedly embraced a new clean energy innovation agenda, calling for massive global investments--on the order of $100 billion per year--in energy R&D. New York Times conservative commentator David Brooks has also acknowledged that the government should invest much more--around $25 billion per year--in research and development.
On the left, the Center for American Progress (CAP), the Democratic think tank whose spokespersons have in the past attacked Breakthrough's proposal to "Make Clean Energy Cheap," appears to be embracing just such a strategy -- at least rhetorically. According to a recent news report, Democratic lawyer Reed Hundt, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is working with CAP and Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection on a new energy bill for the next Congress that focuses first and foremost on "lowering the cost of clean."
Hundt and CAP/Gore are also talking about measures to scale out the "breakthrough technologies" that the Department of Energy has funded.
In an effort to combat the hysterical, anti-government ideology that is taking root within the Republican Party, NYT commentator David Brooks reminds fellow conservatives that government has always partnered with the private sector to catalyze entrepreneurship and growth, and that such partnerships will once again be critical to secure the nation's economic future.
It is fashionable these days to paint the government as a useless yet ravenous institution, the expansion of which will turn America into a third world country - or, worse yet, France.
Even the Economist, a respected, moderate publication, has recently taken to framing the government as a hideous Leviathan consuming private business, and everything else in its path.
But according to a new column by conservative commentator David Brooks, the hysterical, anti-government ideology that has taken root within even mainstream corners of the Republican Party is driven by an "oversimplified version of American history, with dangerous implications."
The simple mathematics are that the world needs one nuclear-plant equivalent of carbon-free energy coming on line every day between now and midcentury. The reality is that scaling clean energy sources at that pace is going to require serious technological innovation and sustained commitment to fielding and improving clean energy technologies.
Pacala and Socolow (8) analyzed a scenario that envisioned stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at 500 ppm within 50 years. They found that reaching that goal required the deployment of seven existing or nearly existing groups of technologies, such as more fuel-efficient vehicles, to remove seven "wedges" of predicted future emissions (the wedge image coming from the shape created by graphing each increment of avoided future emissions). Those seven wedges, each of which represents 25 gigatons of avoided carbon emissions by 2054, are cited by some as sufficient to "solve" climate change for 50 years (9).
Unfortunately, the original wedges approach greatly underestimates needed reductions. In part, that is because Pacala and Socolow built their scenario on a business as usual (BAU) emissions baseline based on assumptions that do not appear to be coming true. For instance, the scenario assumes that a shift in the mix of fossil fuels will reduce the amount of carbon released per unit of energy. This carbon-to-energy ratio did decline during prior shifts from coal to oil, and then from oil to natural gas. Now, however, the ratio is increasing as natural gas and oil approach peak production, coal production rises, and new coal-fired power plants are built in China, India, and the United States (10).
The enormous challenge of making the transition to carbon-neutral power sources becomes even clearer when emissions-reduction scenarios are based on arguably more realistic baselines, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's "frozen technology" scenario ( 11, 12). Capturing all alternate energy technologies, including those assumed within this BAU scenario, means that a total of ~18 of Pacala and Socolow's wedges would be needed to curb emissions (13) (see the figure). And to keep future warming below 2°C, even under the Davis et al. age-out scenario, an additional 7 wedges of emissions reductions would be needed-- for a total of 25 wedges (see the figure).
Last week's The Economistleader and cover story, "Picking winners, saving losers", painted an insidious picture of governments' increasing intervention in market economies, arguing that the hideous Leviathan of the state was gobbling up one sector after another and warning that "picking industrial winners nearly always fails." Now, put aside the fact that the government was forced into some sectors--such as automobiles and financial services--only after mammoth market failures and pleas for rescues from capitalism's chieftains. The more important fact is that the article feeds a Socialism-is-coming hysteria and ignores how picking winners--within limits--has worked in the past for the United States (and Japan, South Korea, etc.) and is needed more than ever to bolster our long-term competitiveness.
Of course, the debate about the appropriate role between the state and the private sector in market economies has raged for centuries. The debate is marred in part by vague terminology, and The Economist perpetuates this problem by throwing around a slew of terms--"picking winners", "industrial policy", "innovation policy"--without adequately distinguishing between them but while uniformly indicting them as inappropriate manifestations of government economic intervention.
It would be more constructive to envision a continuum of government-market engagement, increasing from left to right in four steps from a "laissez faire, leave it to the market" approach to "supporting factor conditions for innovation (such as education)" (which The Economist endorses, as, certainly, does ITIF) to going further by "supporting key technologies/industries" to at the most extreme "picking specific national champion companies", that is, "picking winners." And while it is generally inadvisable for governments to intervene in markets to support specific national champion companies, ITIF believes there is an appropriate role for government in placing strategic bets to support potentially breakthrough nascent technologies and industries.
Instead of raising the price of fossil fuels, Gates argues that the time has come to shift our attention to raising the revenues necessary to fuel innovation and make clean energy cheap.
In a new interview with Technology Review, Bill Gates nails the global energy and climate challenge and discusses the need for dramatic increases in energy innovation funding to make clean energy cheap.
In a climate discourse dominated by emissions targets and carbon caps, Gates has provided a refreshing and clear-eyed look at the first-order importance of direct public investment to develop clean, affordable technologies to replace fossil fuels on a global scale.
In this new interview, Gates discusses why dismissing the difficulty of the challenge is counter-productive, and argues that carbon pricing can never drive the dramatic innovation required to transform the global energy system. Instead of raising the price of fossil fuels, Gates argues that the time has come to shift our attention to raising the revenues necessary to fuel innovation and make clean energy cheap.
Below the fold, you can find excerpts from Gates' interview, which can be read in full here.
For more, the NYTimesAndy Revkin and TIME magazine's Bryan Walsh each spotlight the interview here and here, respectively.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has funded breakthrough innovation and new growth industries that are driving down the cost of clean energy and building the foundation for competitive 21st century U.S. industries, according to a new White House reportreleased today on the impacts of the U.S. stimulus bill.
Yet while the White House report highlights the considerable clean energy momentum established by the Recovery Act, it also inadvertently raises the specter of an impending clean tech funding cliff which risks sending U.S. clean energy industries into deep freeze as stimulus funds begin to expire over the coming months.
There's been some change over at WhiteHouse.gov's energy and environment page, but probably not the kind we had in mind when we heard President Obama's oft-repeated campaign slogan, "Change You Can Believe In."
A number of (as yet unfulfilled) energy and environmental policy pledges have been removed from the WhiteHouse.gov page in recent weeks.
Chief among them: President Obama's pledge to "invest $150 billion over ten years in energy research and development to transition to a clean energy economy," once a central plank in Obama's energy and environment platform, and a feature of his first national budget proposal (in FY2009).
"What determines success in industrial policy is not the ability to pick winners but the capacity to let the losers go." - Dani Rodrik, as quoted in a Businessweek article evaluating the future of industrial policy and clean energy...
"What determines success in industrial policy is not the ability to pick winners but the capacity to let the losers go."
- Dani Rodrik, as quoted in a Businessweek article evaluating the future of industrial policy and clean energy technology in the United States. Really, a useful lesson to keep in mind when it comes to policy design.
Perhaps there are some signs that a technology-centered approach to decarbonization is gaining momentum. First, from the international negotiations:
U.S. companies are lobbying at UN climate talks in Bonn for incentives to spur technologies that could slow the pace of carbon emissions, abandoning a push to encourage a cap on gas emissions, a business lobby group said.
The U.S. Council for International Business, whose members include General Electric Co. and Coca-Cola Co., said rules to cap CO2 emissions are unlikely soon, Norine Kennedy, vice president of energy and environmental affairs, said in an interview today. Instead, they want incentives encouraging technologies they're promoting.
"The center of the action is technology," she said at the United Nations climate talks. "There's broad agreement that we won't get to the mitigation targets without technology."
Seemingly inspired by the death of cap and trade, over at the Daily Dish Andrew Sullivan has tied together two interesting threads of conversation -- "Waiting on Innovation" and "Why Not?" -- that deal with the issues of energy innovation and energy taxes.
Highlighted in "Why Not?" the Economist's Ryan Avent is on to something when he suggests a $5 per barrel petroleum tax since it could generate about $40 billion in revenue annually. But to suggest, as Avent does, that the tax should rise by $5 each year with the objective of forcing consumers to drive less or purchase more fuel-efficient cars is a strategy that risks falling into the same political trap that ultimately ensnared cap and trade.
Meet the $35 dollar laptop, the result of the Indian government's direct investment in information technology research. If manufactured successfully, the laptop will both revolutionize education in the developing world and serve as a testament to the power of government investment to trigger rapid technological progress.
Last week, the Indian government showcased a prototype of a low-cost laptop that could trigger an education revolution in India and elsewhere in the developing world. If successful, the newly announced computer will serve as a prime example of how direct government investments can reduce the price of technology quickly and effectively.
Funded by the Ministry of Human Resources Development and designed by students from India's top universities, the laptop is slated to enter the market in 2011.
According to a recent IEA report, the U.S. is not alone in facing the possibility of a clean technology R&D funding cliff. The report documents an uptick in global clean energy R&D investment in 2009 as a result of country-level stimulus packages, but the author of the report cautions that investment on this level must be built upon, not allowed to drop off.
According to the [IEA] report, "Global Gaps in Clean Energy RD&D," the recent burst of spending on research as part of various countries' efforts to stimulate their fragile economies has helped provide a substantial boost after decades of diminishing investment on the frontiers of energy inquiry. But the report's author, Thomas Kerr, warned that this was a transitory pulse when sustained growth was needed, particularly given signs that no global price on carbon dioxide emissions was likely any time soon. In essence, the report says, the $24 billion in such spending in 2009 needs to be the new floor for such investments, not a temporary peak.
The report describes how India, despite its poverty, has moved ahead with an initiative for raising money for energy research that the United States -- thanks to a lack of leadership, congressional polarization and fear of anything remotely resembling a tax -- has so far been unable to do: India has created a National Clean Energy Fund for research and innovation financed by a levy of $1.10 (U.S.) per metric ton of mined or imported coal. It's a very modest fee that has created hundreds of millions of dollars to stimulate Indian research and testing of promising technologies.
Click here for more on India's National Clean Energy Fund.
Not "everything should be on the table" for budget cuts to reduce the deficit, argues ITIF President Rob Atkinson in a recent essay. Despite what "neo-classical inspired budget hawks" may insist, Atkinson points out, all spending is not created equal and slashing budget line items for investments that spur innovation could actually serve to put the U.S. further in the red.
He writes:
What's behind this widespread unwillingness to prioritize investment? Budget hawks fear that sparing one item from the chopping block will only validate the demands of interest groups to exempt their pet programs. In addition, many adhere to a neo-classical economics perspective, which holds that government plays a negligible role in economic growth and should be neutral with regard to private sector activity... But government should be anything but neutral. Science and infrastructure funding is more valuable than farm subsidies. Government support for research in computer chips is more valuable than support for potato chips...
In contrast, an innovation economics approach to the budget distinguishes between spending on consumption and spending on investment. For innovation economics advocates, all spending (either on the tax or expenditure side) should be on the table, and all investment (on the tax and expenditure side) should be off the table...
We need to expand investments in education and training, science and research, technology (including, but not limited to clean energy) and physical infrastructure. In economic downturns, successful corporations don't cut key investments because they know that these investments are vital to gaining market share and competitive advantage in the moderate term. Governments should think the same way.
In a recent Guardian op-ed, Breakthrough Senior Fellow Ulrich Beck argues that the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe should be inspiring far more than just a pointless blame game. Instead, he points out, "we need the celebrated innovative power of capital and the utopian enthusiasm of engineers," to revolutionize the way we use energy and make use of the most abundant sources of energy, such as solar power.
Beck writes:
Postwar prosperity in the west laid the foundation for environmental awareness. Now environmental awareness must provide the basis for prosperity in developing countries. These countries will adopt sustainable policies to the extent that the affluent countries invest in their development and adopt a new vision of prosperity and growth. China, India, Brazil and African countries will not agree to any approach that tries to limit their efforts to achieve economic parity - and rightly so.
But does the future lie with a global environmental policy based on carbon trading, which amounts to the global sale of indulgences for CO2 sins? Or will we have the courage to invent and realise a new age of solar energy in which prosperity is not an environmental sin, and when everything from cows to electric toothbrushes is blamed for contributing to CO2 emissions? "It is time to introduce clean forms of energy," Obama has said. If he can ring in an era that is truly Beyond Petroleum, Big Oil's Bastille will be doomed.
Update (Jul 16, 2010): Expanding on a Washington Post op-ed, Vinod Khosla delineates his argument "about the deficiencies of an isolated cap-and-trade or carbon-pricing bill," and joins the climate technology consensus. Khosla writes, "If we want to make a significant difference, we need to get on the path to reducing carbon worldwide by 80 percent now by focusing on what I call "carbon reduction capacity building" -- in other words, we need to develop radical carbon-reduction technologies. A utility cap (or a carbon price) won't build capacity -- it will just increase our utility costs and decrease our manufacturing competitiveness without any increase in our technological competitiveness. On the other hand, although a policy that promotes capacity building will increase research investments in the short term, it will likely decrease overall electricity costs in the medium to long run (through the magic of competition, technology and regulatory certainty), while simultaneously reducing carbon. Disruptive technologies require investment; they don't come from the status quo."
Update (Jul 14, 2010): Other observers have reached similar conclusions about the faltering pollution paradigm. Walter Russell Mead and Clive Crook weigh in on "The Big Green Lie" but can't agree on what it is. Mead argues that it is "that the green movement is a source of coherent or responsible counsel about what to do" while Crook argues that "it's the diminished credibility of the claim that we have a problem in the first place." But both agree that cap and trade and the effort to establish a global carbon pollution regime are dead. Meanwhile, Newsweek's Stefan Theil observes that "the whole concept of radical, top-down global targets is coming under scrutiny" and suggests that the "new climate realism" will "look at other options beyond the current set of targets" and "include a broader mix of policies" including "a shift of subsidies into research and development" and "greater efforts to adapt society to a warmer climate."
Update (Jul 10, 2010): See Andrew Pendleton and Matthew Lockwood of the UK-based IPPR think tank response to Alex Evans' contention that real action on climate will only occur after a major global warming disaster. "There is simply no reason to believe that a climate shock big enough to bring about major changes in thinking will come along before we reach a tipping point (how would we know?)" they write. "Climate change is by its nature long-term and insidious, more like a frog in a warming pot than a sudden Anschluss."
The twenty-year effort to create a single global pollution framework to reduce carbon emissions is in a state of collapse. Meanwhile, a new climate policy consensus is emerging, one which prioritizes direct investment in technology innovation to make clean energy cheap. The new framework begins from the understanding that the root cause of the failure of the pollution paradigm was the technology and price gap between fossil fuels and their alternatives. But hard and important questions are being asked of the new investment-and-innovation paradigm. How is it different from just increasing subsidies for clean energy? How can we be sure it will reduce emissions? What role should carbon pricing play? Here Breakthrough Institute answers frequently asked questions of the climate technology paradigm and responds to challenges raised by Alex Evans on the left and Robert Michaels on the right, among others, who have taken aim at Breakthrough's and Bill Gates' proposals, respectively.
By Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger
The twenty-year effort to create a single global pollution framework to reduce carbon emissions is in a state of collapse. Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has not reduced emissions and is quickly fading as the central effort to decarbonize European economies. The UN process is becoming a forum for nations to compare and coordinate national policies and measures, not create or enforce a binding global treaty. And it is now clear that, if energy legislation passes the U.S. Senate, it will not create an economy-wide cap-and-trade system, nor will it increase the deployment of clean energy.
Meanwhile, a new climate policy consensus is emerging, one which prioritizes direct investment in technology innovation. This consensus begins with the recognition that the root cause of the failure of the pollution paradigm was the technology and price gap between fossil fuels and their alternatives. No nation -- not even the wealthiest in Europe -- is willing to price carbon enough to cover the difference. Until the technology gap is closed, little will be done to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Arising out of the debates surrounding clean technology and the economic recession, is the nagging question: can the U.S. continue to lead in high tech innovation without domestic manufacturing? Increasingly, it seems, the answer is "NO" -- a response that carries serious implications for clean tech innovation and economic growth in the U.S.
Political confusion surrounding "green" jobs, clean tech, and outsourced manufacturing (largely to Asia) has caused those looking to clean energy as the next U.S. growth sector and those seeking to raise the U.S. out of a growth-numbing recession to lose sight of what has fueled U.S. technological and economic leadership in the past - public support for innovation and large scale high tech manufacturing. Recently, Alexis Madrigal posed the critical question arising from this confusion to the readers of the Atlantic: "Can the US Innovate Without Manufacturing?"
As Breakthrough and numerous high tech leaders argue, the answer is "NO."
In a new IEA report intended to inform and guide climate and energy policy decision makers, the Energy Technology Perspective 2010 (Exec. Summary; full report purchase required) demonstrates that the clean technology revolution will require an additional $46 trillion investment (beyond energy infrastructure investment expected in BAU scenarios) if we intend to halve carbon emissions by 2050 (from 2005 levels). And, the IEA adds, a carbon price alone will not be sufficient to drive that level of investment.
In the face of numerous energy dilemmas there is a growing consensus that energy innovation offers a pathway to the most important solutions of our time. As the White House and Congress seem flummoxed by what steps to take next, it may be time to look to history for some guidance.
Just ten years into the second millennium, the U.S. finds itself in a situation complicated by a catastrophic oil spill dumping hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf, a badly wounded, if recovering, economy whose historic dominance is being ably challenged, and a growing demand for energy that must be produced without hastening the impacts of climate change. There is a growing consensus that energy innovation offers a pathway to the solutions for all of these challenges, but the White House and Congress seem flummoxed by what steps to take next. As TIME magazine's Bryan Walsh suggests in his latest cover story (subs. req'd) profiling the influence of Thomas Edison's innovative genius on the energy industry in the 20th century, it may be time to look to history for some guidance.
As Walsh explains, Edison "spent his career "inventing the century" - the 20th century." But he did not devise the inventions that gave birth to the electrical power industry (not to mention the recorded music and motion picture industries) in a vacuum. Instead, Edison's innovative potential was nurtured from a young age and as an adult, he continued to encourage his creativity by surrounding himself with others whose knowledge base could help him realize his ideas.
Eight universities and think tanks have all converged on four policy principles to enhance technology innovation in the effort to mitigate climate change, says a new report released earlier this week by the Clean Air Task Force and the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes (CSPO) at Arizona State University.
The report, "Four Policy Principles for Energy Innovation & Climate Change: A Synthesis" (PDF) combined the recommendations made in eight studies conducted by universities like Harvard and MIT as well as think tanks like the Brookings Institution and the National Commission on Energy Policy to create the following four policy principles:
1. Recognize that innovation policy is more than R&D policy
2. Pursue multiple innovation pathways
3. Recognize CO2 reduction as a public good, and pursue energy innovation through a public works model.
4. Encourage collaboration on energy innovation with rapidly industrializing countries.
Despite the independence of the teams, we found remarkable convergence on some very basic principles that should guide the design of workable, comprehensive clean energy innovation policies. Key among them is that we are going to have to deploy lots of real stuff at a large scale in the field - and not just in the lab - to innovate our way toward a solution. That's not going to be cheap, but it is going to be worth it. We need to start yesterday.
The report is one of four reports released this month calling for a strengthened, robust commitment to U.S. clean tech innovation policy. The Breakthrough Institute co-released two of those reports -- one arguing that Congress must support legislation to improve U.S. clean tech competitiveness and the other demonstrating that the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act would increase energy R&D funding by as little as $2.2 billion per year. The third, a report released by the new American Energy Innovation Council, called for a tripling of public investment in clean energy R&D.
Update (6/30/10):Andrew Revkin highlighted the ITIF report today on his blog, Dot Earth, noting that "the report is a healthy challenge to anyone, including me, with ingrained views on how to propel an "energy quest." Breakthrough has consistently worked to debunk many of the myths highlighted in ITIF's report. For additional reading, click the links in the list below.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation has released a new report dismantling the top ten myths in the climate change debate, including the claim that "we have all the technologies we need" and that carbon prices are enough to drive a transition to a clean energy economy. The full report is well worth the read, but here's a summary from ITIF:
The debate on policy responses to climate change is fueled by myths ranging from assumptions that high carbon taxes will alter behavior significantly to overconfidence that green energy is poised to restore our economic prosperity overnight. What's more, many analysts are glossing over the complexity and possible unfairness of cap-and-trade and underestimating just how big a dent we have to make in our greenhouse gas production. What is missing is an understanding that innovation in the energy sector is essential to the transformation in how we produce and consume energy that we want and need. ITIF dismantles the top ten myths in this debate in a new report.
By re-thinking how the federal government can foster innovation and competitiveness in clean energy, from education and research to commercialization and production, the United States can once again become a global leader in clean energy technology.
By Jesse Jenkins, Mark Muro, and Rob Atkinson, originally at the New Republic
Having passed the U.S. House of Representatives on May 28th, the America COMPETES Act, America's flagship competitiveness legislation, will soon be debated in the U.S. Senate. The Act was originally passed in 2007 in response to mounting concern that the United States was failing to effectively compete economically with other nations, imperiling the nation's future prosperity.
Now, a new outbreak of anxiety has engulfed the nation's competitive standing particularly as regards the nation's fledgling clean energy industry. Presently, the United States lacks an effective strategy to compete in this high-growth industry, which is expected to surpass $600 billion globally by 2020. Fortunately, the America COMPETES reauthorization offers a key opportunity for Congress to strengthen U.S. clean energy competitiveness.
In a new policy report, the Breakthrough Institute, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program call on Congress to strengthen clean energy competitiveness through the America COMPETES reauthorization.
Congress first passed this flagship competitiveness legislation in 2007 in response to concerns that the United States was losing its ability to compete economically with other nations. On May 28, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the COMPETES reauthorization by a vote of 262-150 and the bill is set to be debated in the Senate. The reauthorization comes at a time when the United States seeks new sources of growth in a fiscally constrained environment. The clean energy market is one such growth industry--expected to surpass $600 billion by 2020--but the U.S. faces unprecedented global competition.
In "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant," an authoritative report on international clean energy competitiveness, the Breakthrough Institute and ITIF recently demonstrated how U.S. leadership on a number of clean energy competitiveness metrics has declined in the last decade. The United States' historic lead in energy innovation is slipping as other countries implement national innovation strategies. America now lags economic competitors in Asia and Europe in the manufacture of virtually all clean energy technologies. And the U.S. lags its economic rivals in preparing its future workforce with critical science, technology, engineering and math education (STEM).
The new report argues that to regain leadership in the global clean energy market, the United States must prioritize major investments in clean energy technology and embrace bold new paradigms in clean energy education, innovation, and production and manufacturing policy.
"Meeting the aggressive challenges to U.S. clean energy leadership will require both increased funding for critical education and technology programs as well as new ideas for how the federal government can foster innovation in the clean energy industry, from basic research to full-scale commercialization," said Mark Muro, Director of Policy at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Project.
The Brookings Institution is out with a new policy brief today building on their prior calls for energy discovery innovation institutes (e-DIIs). These regionally-based, collaborative research centers are designed to "serve as the hubs of a distributed research network linking the nation's best scientists, engineers, and facilities." The newest report assesses the potential for e-DII's in the Great Lakes region.
Through such a network, the nation could at once increase its current inadequate energy R&D effort and complement existing resources with a new research paradigm that would join the unique capabilities of America's research universities to those of corporate R&D and federal laboratories.
Brookings' vision for creating an energy innovation network is consonant with a similar concept put forward by the Breakthrough Institute and Third Way in "Jumpstarting a Clean Energy Revolution with a National Institutes of Energy" which called for a national commitment to energy innovation modeled on the National Institutes of Health.
A new report by WWF confirms that the potential economic gains associated with clean energy exports are huge, but falls short in advancing an effective strategy for the U.S. to compete. More than pricing carbon and subsidizing clean energy in perpetuity, U.S. competitiveness in clean energy requires a comprehensive federal investment strategy in clean energy innovation and deployment to make clean energy cheap in real, unsubsidized terms.
A new report by the World Wildlife Fund outlines the enormous potential economic gains associated with clean energy export market share. The report, however, misses a critical opportunity to advance the most effective solution to declining U.S. clean energy competitiveness -- major public investment in clean technology innovation and deployment to make clean energy cheap.
Three-quarters of additional energy demand between now and 2050 is expected to occur in developing countries, according to the new report, suggesting that any national strategy to capitalize on the economic benefits of the growing clean energy industry must also focus on boosting clean energy exports.
"If US businesses capture 14% market share (which reflects current US exports in environmental goods and services in developing countries) in just a subset of this new clean technology market, it would result in up to 850,000 new American jobs"
But the policies that WWF recommends--putting a rising price on carbon and subsidizing clean energy in the developing world--will fail on their own to deliver on the promise of securing U.S. market share both domestically and abroad.
Before a Senate Finance Subcommittee, ITIF President and "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant" co-author Rob Atkinson testified in support of incentives for US clean energy manufacturing as part of a comprehensive strategy for clean energy competitiveness.
Testifying before the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure, ITIF President and "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant" co-author Rob Atkinson spoke in support of incentives for US clean energy manufacturing as part of a comprehensive strategy for clean energy competitiveness. Building on Breakthrough's work with him on "Rising Tigers," Atkinson warned that a carbon price, and other demand side policies, are not enough to spur the kind of innovation necessary to ensure clean energy competitiveness.
Below are some highlights from his testimony. You can read the full testimony here.
Global climate policy should be radically overhauled in the wake of the failure of the United Nations process, an international group of 14 climate policy experts and scientists argue in the "Hartwell Paper." Instead of the failed Kyoto-Copenhagen focus on national emissions targets and timetables, what's needed is a focus on expanding access to energy for the poor, quickly reducing non-CO2 climate forcings, and adaptation to changing climate.
Global climate policy should be radically overhauled in the wake of the failure of the United Nations process, an international group of 14 climate policy experts and scientists argue in a new paper. The Kyoto-Copenhagen focus on national emissions targets and timetables was bound to fail because it proposed a single over-arching framework to deal with a "wickedly' complex problem. Instead what's needed is a focus on expanding access to energy for the poor, quickly reducing non-CO2 climate forcings, and adaptation to changing climate.
The paper brings together a set of ideas that have been developing over the last decade. The meeting was convened by Gwyn Prins of London School of Ecomomics and Steve Rayner of Oxford University, who wrote "The Wrong Trousers," a 2007 critique of Kyoto. The group included, among others, East Anglia University climate scientist Mike Hulme, author of "Why We Disagree About Climate Change," Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute, the economist Chris Green, co-author of a 2002 Science article calling for advanced energy research to stabilize climate emissions, and University of Colorado's Roger Pielke and Arizona State's Dan Sarewitz, authors of a 2000 Atlantic magazine story arguing climate policy to shift focus to technology innovation and adaptation. Green, Pielke, and Sarewitz are all Breakthrough Senior Fellows.
The bottom line: putting a price on carbon or regulating emissions is not sufficient to address the nation's climate problem or seize the economic opportunities in the fast-growing clean energy sector. Any Senate climate bill worth it's salt must clear the critical clean energy innovation threshold: $15-25 billion a year invested in clean energy technology innovation.
What is clear, though, is this: To get to a good bill senators need to deal properly with the revenue--whether from offshore oil drilling or pollution allowance auctions or whatever else is in the bill. And to do that they need to make sure a huge chunk of it gets applied to clean-energy research and development. Get that right and much else needn't be perfect. Blow that, and the bill is likely not worth it.
... The bottom line is this: Putting a price on carbon, or regulating emissions, ... while absolutely necessary, will not be sufficient to address the nation's climate problem and will, importantly, not put the U.S. in the position to seize the extraordinary opportunities that will come with rebuilding to global energy economy. Also necessary, as we keep saying, will be a major drive to promote large-scale technology breakthroughs. No matter how you measure it, U.S. government investment in clean energy R&D remains grossly inadequate. Right now clean energy R&D accounts for only around $3 billion a year. But if we're going to see real progress in de-carbonizing the present economy and creating the next one this number should be closer to $15 billion and probably as much as $25 billion per year.
So that's the target: $15 to $25 billion a year is "the number"--the critical investment threshold for federal clean energy investment that must become a core benchmark for evaluating any and all federal climate, energy, or indeed appropriations deal making.
Mark notes the rumors and reports of the still-not-yet-public drafts of the K-G-L bill do not bode well for the bill's ability to clear this critical clean energy innovation threshold...
We have compelling reasons to drive for clean, cheap energy, but we lack the technology to get there today. Threats of climate change, national competitiveness and energy security (OK, "clean, cheap, domestic energy") all contribute to the urgency of this innovation challenge. Given the scale of the challenge, coupled with the dire consequences of not succeeding, it is only natural that we'd look for reassurance and guidance from historical success stories of large-scale innovation.
Most frequently mentioned are the Apollo Project ("land a man on the moon by the end of the decade"), and the Manhattan Project ("develop nuclear weapons before our enemies"). They are attractive because they had urgent time tables, required outside-the-box innovation, and most importantly, as measured by their stated goals, were wildly successful. They provide some confidence that we (or maybe even just the President) need only to make the decision, and it will happen!
Cape Wind was a momentous clean energy victory but if climate change advocates truly take the immense scale of the energy and climate challenge seriously, we must ensure that this is the last time that a new zero-carbon energy source faces such prolonged NIMBY opposition.
Al Gore has called on the U.S. to "commit to producing 100% of electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon free sources within ten years." But the ten-year hard-fought battle to secure approval for Cape Wind shows that we cannot come close to meeting even a fraction of his goal if we do not appreciate the scale of energy challenge and the incredible pace of clean energy innovation and deployment required to truly reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change.
First, let's put Cape Wind in perspective. A $1 billion dollar project, America's first offshore wind farm will consist of 130 turbines that can produce roughly 1.6 billion kWh of electricity annually, enough to power three-quarters of the homes on Nantucket and surrounding islands. But on a national scale, this iconic project will only meet about 0.04% of the total (forecasted) U.S electricity demand in 2010, expected to be about 3,784 billion kWh.
Yesterday's column in the NYT by Thomas Friedman illustrates why efforts to put a price on carbon are not going to do much at all to stimulate energy technology innovation. Friedman writes:
After months of heroic negotiations, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman had forged a bipartisan climate/energy/jobs bill that, while far from perfect, would have, for the first time, put a long-term fixed price on carbon -- precisely the kind of price signal U.S. industry and consumers need to start really shifting the economy to clean-power innovations. . .
Without that price signal, you will never get sustained consumer demand for, or sustained private investment in, clean-power technologies. All you will get are hobbies. . .
I'd love to see the president come out, guns blazing with this message: "Yes, if we pass this energy legislation, a small price on carbon will likely show up on your gasoline or electricity bill. I'm not going to lie. But it is an investment that will pay off in so many ways. It will spur innovation in energy efficiency that will actually lower the total amount you pay for driving, heating or cooling. It will reduce carbon pollution in the air we breathe and make us healthier as a country. It will reduce the money we are sending to nations that crush democracy and promote intolerance. It will strengthen the dollar. It will make us more energy secure, environmentally secure and strategically secure. . . "
It is not clear what that "price on carbon" is in the legislation or how widely it would be applied, but for the purposes of discussion, let's just say that it starts at $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide and is applied economy-wide.
Out of the scramble over the thrice-delayed Kerry/Graham/Lieberman climate bill, various policy alternatives have emerged. Grassroots greens are arguing for cap and dividend but high tech leaders including Bill Gates are calling for an explicit energy technology innovation agenda that - if backed by a direct, large-scale plan for investment - could leave carbon pricing alternatives by the wayside.
Out of the scramble over the thrice-delayed Kerry/Graham/Lieberman (KGL or "keggles") climate bill have emerged various alternatives, with grassroots greens arguing for cap and dividend and high tech leaders including Bill Gates calling for an explicit technology innovation agenda.
Earlier this month, Bill McKibben advocated in The New Republic for the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR Act, claiming it would solve the political problem of raising energy costs because it would rebate some of the pollution allowances to consumers -- "three-quarters will come out ahead," McKibben claims, "with only real energy hogs hurting .
It is simply not true that the government should not or cannot pick technological winners and losers. That was ITIF President Rob Atkinson's message in a piece today at Huffington Post. Indeed, as Atkinson writes, the government has always picked winners and in the process, has developed entire new industries, like IT, that have formed the foundation of economic prosperity and the basis of our modern way of life. What would our lives be like if we had left everything to the "free market"?
From Huffington Post:
"But the free market opponents will say how can Washington outsmart the market? Is this the same market that through its infinite wisdom invested hundreds of billions of subprime mortgages? In fact, the government has a pretty good track record of picking winners. Just look at the technologies that the government had a key role in developing: the Internet, the web browser, the search engine, computer graphics, semiconductors, and a host of others. There are many other examples of success stories made possible not because government anointed a particular young entrepreneur but because the government made a conscious choice to open new pathways into which young innovators could embark."
A few weeks ago, at an event on the same subject, Atkinson and former-Reaganite Clyde Prestowitz took the neoliberal free market ideologues including former Clintonite, Robert Lawrence (ironic?) to task for their ahistorical views. Amidst all the anti-government fervor lies the true but unconventional wisdom: the government can and should pick technological winners. Our economic prosperity depends on it.
Update: As Alexis Madrigal points out at WIRED, it's great to see the list of "heavy hitters" on the American Energy Innovation Council embrace a technology innovation agenda like the one Breakthrough has been working to advance. Let's hope this welcome show of support will be followed up by a serious commitment of financial resources.
An op-ed from Microsoft's Bill Gates and DuPont's Chad Holliday gives voice to the private sector's support for public investment in clean energy because energy, as Breakthrough has long argued, "requires a public commitment."
Gates and Holliday lay out three reasons why the private sector can't make this investment on its own:
What makes energy different from, say, electronics? Three things.
First, there are profound public interests in having more energy options. Our national security, economic health and environment are at issue. These are not primary motivations for private-sector investments, but they merit a public commitment.
Second, the nature of the energy business requires a public commitment. A new generation of television technology might cost $10 million to develop. Because those TVs can be built on existing assembly lines, that risk-reward calculus makes business sense. But a new electric power source can cost several billion dollars to develop and still carry the risk of failure. That investment does not compute for most companies.
Third, the turnover in our power system is very slow. Power plants last 50 years or more, and they are very cheap to run once built, meaning there is little market for new models.
It is understandable, then, why private-sector investments in clean energy technology are so small. Yet, while it may make sense for individual companies to make these choices, accepting the status quo would condemn our country to very bad options.
The Copenhagen climate talks may have been a symbolic success according to some, but the Accord won't mitigate climate change and the forthcoming Kerry/Graham/Lieberman climate bill will not lead to technology innovation. These failures, notes Michael Lind in a new white paper, show the collapse of the climate paradigm and the need to redefine our approach to climate change in terms of technology
The climate negotiations in Copenhagen resulted in a 193-nation agreement that included 154 policy commitments -- "the highest number of new government initiatives ever recorded . . . in a four-month period," according to Deutsche Bank -- but do they really matter?
In the months since the frenetic, and at times, apoplectic UNFCCC meeting, two conflicting views have emerged.
A report released earlier this month by Deutsche Bank (DB) presented analysis like those from Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Center for American Progress (CAP) showing the talks were "no failure."
"Today, on Earth Day, let's celebrate American ingenuity. We have it within ourselves to lead the world to a better place based on our dreams, our engineers and our innovation system."
Today, on the 40th Earth Day, we look back at where we've come from, but also look forward to where we'd like to go. And while, as Americans, we're compelled to look towards Washington and focus on what our politicians have done in past, and may or may not do in the future, on behalf of the environment, we also need to look at our innovation system and how we keep it healthy as well.
At any point in time we can point to past innovations as the root cause of our environmental issues, but we also have a history of being able to innovate better solutions once we understand these impacts. We've gotten lead out of paint, CFCs out of a variety of products, created increasingly efficient internal combustion engines, and on and on.
Two new posts for Earth Day argue that we need to move from nature protection to tech innovation. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger are in Slate and Mother Jones arguing that the focus on technology transfer as part of a global climate agreement is a distraction: clean tech IP has already been rapidly transferred to China -- soon it will be transferred back here.
Politicians talking about clean energy jobs like to claim "they can't be shipped overseas." From President Obama's State of the Union to Rep. Ed Markey stumping for the climate bill he co-authored with Rep. Henry Waxman, the promise of new "green jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced" is an all too common refrain.
The only problem with it is that it's wrong on its face.
America is already exporting clean energy jobs -- or seeing them created abroad in the first place. After pioneering wind and solar power, electric cars, and nuclear plants, America turned its back on the public investments in cutting edge technology that catalyzed these innovations, forfeiting cleantech industries to foreign countries who did not make the same mistakes. The cap and trade program at the heart of the climate bill authored by Rep. Markey may help create more clean energy jobs overseas, but it won't bring those jobs back to America. Conventional responses to today's competitiveness challenge won't cut it. Here's what will...
During a panel hosted by Waxman-Markey proponent, Center for American Progress, ITIF president Rob Atkinson argued that cap and trade was not sufficient to catalyze a clean energy future, proposing instead, policy focused on public investment in innovation to make clean energy cheap and abundant.
Speaking at a panel on building a clean energy economy, ITIF President and "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant" co-author Rob Atkinson declared that current technologies are not enough to create a competitive domestic clean energy industry and that major investments in energy innovation are necessary to make clean energy cheap and abundant.
The increased competition for GE from local companies in China is due in part to a massive push by the Chinese government to promote clean energy and R&D. In recent years, it has rolled out a range of renewable energy targets and financial incentives, including significant tax breaks for companies that invest in research related to energy...
The GE research center has also been key for the development of wind-power technology, including power electronics hardware and software that allow wind turbines to keep operating after lightning strikes and other events cause sudden drops in voltage on the power grid. The center has now produced 20 patents in this general area, says Yunfeng Liu, the manager of GE's power conversion lab in Shanghai. Such technology can also make the grid more stable than it would be without the presence of wind turbines, by helping to maintain the necessary voltages and frequencies on transmission lines.
Accelerating U.S. clean technology innovation, manufacturing, and market creation has become not just an environmental necessity but an economic imperative. A presentation and essay by Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey.
Current climate legislation in Congress, with its low price on carbon, ineffective renewable electricity standard, and collection of efficiency regulations, will not be enough for the United States to catch up to countries like China in building the clean energy industries of the future. Without a clean energy competitiveness strategy that can competed with those implemented around the world, America will lose out on one of the greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century.
By Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey
Accelerating U.S. clean technology innovation, manufacturing, and market creation has become not just an environmental necessity but an economic imperative. A recent Pew study showed that the global clean energy industry has experienced rapid investment growth over the last five years. New clean tech investments in 2009 reached $162 billion, which is expected to grow 25 percent to $200 billion in 2010. With the global clean energy economy emerging as one of the largest economic opportunities of the 21st century, government policy and public investment will be critical determinants of which countries come out on top in the race to attract private sector investment in clean energy technologies.
The United States is currently behind other nations in this race, and lacks an effective national strategy to compete. Climate legislation proposed in Congress to date, with its low price on carbon, ineffective renewable electricity standard, and collection of efficiency regulations, will not be enough for the United States to catch up to countries like China in building the clean energy industries of the future. To regain leadership in the global clean technology industry, the United States must enact a comprehensive clean energy competitiveness strategy that prioritizes major public investments in clean energy innovation, manufacturing, market development, education, and infrastructure.
This was the topic of a presentation we gave at the World Energy Technologies Summit in New York City last month. The theme of the conference, which was sponsored by TIME Magazine, was providing a "Reality Check" on the current state of energy technology and policy. The two of us therefore presented a wake-up call about America's lagging position in the global clean energy race, uncovered the realities behind several common myths about U.S. clean energy competitiveness, and outlined what the United States government must do to truly compete for the clean energy industries and markets of the future. After the video of our presentation below, this post summarizes each of these three key topics.
Created in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has done some pretty wondrous things as a result of its efforts to "formulate and execute R&D projects that would expand the frontiers of technology beyond the immediate and specific requirements of the Military Services and their laboratories".
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is different from other federal agencies. For one thing, the agency, known as Darpa, created the Internet (really). For another, it is probably the only agency ever to offer a $40,000 prize for a balloon hunt, a contest that was inspired by Regina Dugan, a 47-year-old expert in mine detection, who took over last summer as its director.
Aside from a number of military innovations such as the Air Force F-117 Stealth Fighter, unmanned aerial drones, and the M16 assault rifle, DARPA is also responsible for a surprising number of innovations that have proven to be gamechangers, even in times of peace.
In addition to the Internet, (which is tough to top), DARPA is responsible for the global positioning satellite system (GPS). In other words, thank DARPA for your handy iPhone.
Obama invokes this classic imagery in his video message explaining the history of Earth Day.
Forty-one years ago, in the city of Cleveland, people watched in horror as the Cuyahoga river, choked with debris and covered in oil, caught on fire. Images of the burning Cuyahoga shocked the nation and it led one Wisconsin senator, the following year, to organize the first Earth Day to call attention to the dangers of ignoring our environment.
But as Michael and Ted wrote in Break Through in 2007, the image of the burning river that purportedly catalyzed Earth Day and the modern environmental movement was actually taken in 1952, not 1969, because the "historic" latter fire didn't even burn long enough to be photographed.
An Indian Finance Minister recently proposed instating a per-ton tax on coal in order to raise revenue for clean energy research and innovation. The policy is a prime example of the right way to put fees on dirty energy to work -- using them to raise revenue for public investment that can catalyze clean energy innovation and adoption. It is also further evidence that both rich and poor nations can find many reasons, in addition to climate concerns, to decarbonize.
India's recent proposal to tax coal (per ton) and allocate the money to a "National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF)" to finance clean energy innovation largely flew under the radar, but the policy is notable for two important reasons. First, India's plan is a prime example of the right way to put fees on dirty energy to work -- using them to raise revenue for public investment that can catalyze clean energy innovation and adoption. Second, the proposed policy is further evidence that both rich and poor nations can find many reasons, in addition to climate concerns, to decarbonize - another point central to the Breakthrough Institute's energy strategies.
Included by the Indian Minister of Finance, Pranab Mukherjee, as part of the 2010 Budget, the clean energy "cess" (a term for tax), would raise the price of each ton of coal by Rs. 50 (USD$1.10).
Last month, Ted and I argued in Yale e360 that there were reasons for decarbonization other than climate change -- many commenters were incredulous. For example: "Although, fwiw, the content of their message is wrong and frankly stupid as well -- what 'bipartisan agreement has grown on the need to decarbonize our energy' exists that is divorced from climate change concerns?"
"America's 250-year supply of coal will be an important source of energy. But even people not much worried about the supposed climate damage done by carbon emissions should see the wisdom--cheaper electricity, less dependence on foreign sources of energy--of Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander's campaign to commit the country to building 100 more nuclear power plants in 20 years."
Breakthrough Project Director Devon Swezey discusses the growing clean tech investment gap between the United States and China and what it means for U.S. competitiveness in the global clean energy sector.
Devon Swezey, Project Director at Breakthrough Institute, appeared on KPFA radio's Morning Show today to discuss the growing clean tech investment gap between China and the United States, and what the United States needs to do to regain some leadership in the burgeoning clean tech industry.
The segment with Morning Show host Brian Edwards-Tiekert begins at the 22 minute mark. You can listen below or click here to download an MP3 of the segment.
Originally posted at Breakthrough Senior Fellow David Douglas's blog, Near Walden.
Bloom Energy's recent announcement of their fuel cell-based "energy server" drew lots of attention from the press, and for good reason. It set some nice marks for performance, and, if successful, will likely be the first of a new market category of energy products.
At Sun we looked at this technology a couple of years back. The use case was as the backup for a datacenter, and to switch to it as primary power when grid power was more expensive (e.g. mid-day in the summer during peak AC time). In this example the technology would enable us to change our view of backup power, from something we only use in emergencies to an energy insurance plan against rising costs. If I recall the only issue was the number of the units that would be required to support a MW or higher datacenter, but improvements in their technology have likely reduced this problem in the meantime.
Beyond work applications, I can't wait to see the home version of this technology, providing electricity and hot water from a single process. Hopefully the folks at Bloom or one of their competitors is working on a version for that!
But putting my nerdish desires aside, its useful to use this milestone to look at the environment in which the Bloom technology came into being. In this case there are two interesting aspects.
IBM's announcement that it will invest $40 million in an energy R&D center in China is further evidence that without a national strategy for clean tech competitiveness that includes public investment in both innovation and manufacturing, America's once dominant lead in energy innovation could quickly disappear.
A recent announcement that IBM will invest $40 million in an"energy and utilities solutions lab" is further evidence that China's large-scale investments in clean tech are attracting private investment in R&D, not just manufacturing.
This latest news from IBM will be difficult for pundits like Thomas Friedman and Brad Plumer to ignore. Friedman and Plumer have argued that the U.S. will be able to maintain its competitive edge in innovation even as clean tech manufacturing relocates overseas.
IBM is not the first, nor is it likely to be the last to set-up a clean-tech R&D center in China. Dow Chemical opened one last June and a few months later Applied Materials follow suit, opening an advanced solar R&D center in Xi'an.
The careers needed to secure competitive clean energy industries will run the gamut from cutting-edge researchers and high-tech engineers to innovative designers and fearless entrepreneurs, and Congress has so-far failed to make the investments necessary to RE-ENERGYSE a new generation of intrepid American innovators.
When you think 'green jobs,' do you conjure images of green hard hats, caulk guns, and tool belts? Well it might be time to start thinking about 'green' lab beakers, 'green' drafting tables and 'green' brief cases as well, because the careers needed to secure competitive clean energy industries will also run the gamut from cutting-edge researchers and high-tech engineers to innovative designers and fearless entrepreneurs, according to Dr. Henry Kelly, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency.
So what is a green job? Well green jobs are architects and engineers that build buildings, design buildings that operate at extremely low energy use. They are people that design, manufacture, and install devices in buildings ranging from high-tech windows to lighting to sensors and controls and electronics. It means looking at radically new industrial processes which simply replace previous kinds of industrial manufacturing with sophisticated bionumetics and nanotech approaches, to cutting down the material intensity and energy intensity of production, this is the kind of thing you need to do to stay competitive in the modern world.
If you look at what the nation's transportation system is going to look like, Henry Ford looks like he's toast, it's going to be replaced with an entirely new generation of either extremely high efficiency fuel powered vehicles, electric vehicles, perhaps even hydrogen fuel cells - the people that make and maintain these are going to be operating in a different world that's an enormously sophisticated operation.
If you're looking at where power comes from, of course you have the entire range of science and engineering involved, you mentioned we're relying on geologists to tell us how to get geothermal energy, getting very sophisticate semiconductor manufacturers involved in the production of solar cells and CSP, if you look at biologically based fuels and materials, some of the most sophisticated biological processing techniques.
So this is an enormous range of skills, but apart from the technical skills you also need people who really understand the economics of finance... behavioral economics, people who understand policy, all of these qualify as green jobs and it touches I think almost every academic discipline.
The good news is that if we do this right we're generating a lot of new interesting jobs, not just for sophisticated designers but for people who are manufacturing and operating these.
Speaking to a packed auditorium at Stanford University, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu called for a Manhattan Project for energy, emphasizing the need for "tens of billions of dollars" annually in public funding for energy technology innovation, but he missed a golden opportunity to inspire and rally our nation's future leaders to tackle the political, economic, and technological hurdles standing in the way of a clean, prosperous U.S. energy economy.
Video: View the Secretary Chu's speech at Stanford in its entirety here and view the "Educating the Energy Generation" panel at Stanford here.
The federal government should be investing "tens of billions of dollars" annually to drive a Manhattan Project-style pace of innovation necessary to address the scale of the energy challenge facing the U.S., said Energy Secretary Steven Chu yesterday.
"If you look at the amount of funding for that [the Manhattan Project], and the amount of funding to put a man on the moon, it was a huge spike in funding. I think we do need that. The recovery act actually was the start of that...you still need I think tens of billions of dollars as a minimum per year invested in these technologies and the associated science. The DOE, our base budget for energy research is on a scale of $3 billion...the primary energy industry budget is about $1 trillion, if it's a high tech industry 10-20% is the usable amount of sale that you invest so that's $200 billion, so what we're investing in federal dollar is less than 1% of that or on a scale of 1% of what should be invested."
The Secretary highlighted the steps the Department of Energy was taking to encourage innovation given the limited funds available, including including the launch of the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy and several Energy Innovation Hubs (nicknamed Bell-lablets) based on the storied Bell Labs innovation model.
This week, U.S. clean tech news is almost as dramatic as the buzz surrounding the 2010 Academy Awards. And while the outcome of intensifying competition has more serious implications in the clean tech sector, like any motion picture worthy of a nomination, there's a very distinct underlying theme to the clean tech drama unfolding: the U.S. needs a national strategy for clean tech competitiveness.
As Joan Fitzgerald suggested in a lengthy American Prospect piece in December, "America's failure to have a coherent, national industrial policy," has dire consequences for long-term economic competitiveness.
That's part of the reason the Department of Energy (DOE) held its inaugural ARPA-E Innovation Summit in Washington D.C. earlier this week, which amassed about 1,700 scientists, engineers, policymakers, investors, and entrepreneurs to discuss the details of a national competitiveness strategy.
This post collects the articles surrounding Bill Gates recent push for an innovation focused R&D agenda that aims to bring down the carbon intensity of energy production to zero CO2 within the next fifty years:
Gates: Efficiency Won't Cut It:Innovation, says Bill Gates, "not insulation," is the way for the United States to transform its energy sector and achieve its "80% by 2050" goal.
Bingaman and Gates Back Chu on Energy R&D:Energy Secretary Steven Chu is ready to stand up for R&D - and he's not alone - Sen. Jeff Bingaman and famous billionaire, Bill Gates, are joining Chu in his fight to make investment in clean energy R&D a policy priority.
Innovating to Zero: Gates Wants Clean, Cheap Energy Fast:Despite the philanthropic focus of his foundation, Bill Gates confided to a rapt audience at the TED conference last week that if he could have one wish granted he wouldn't ask for "vaccines or seeds," he'd ask for clean, cheap energy, and fast.
To Make Poverty History, Make Clean Energy Cheap:Bill Gates understands the challenge of poverty alleviation, which is why he's identified the most critical global imperative to make poverty history: making clean energy cheap.
The growing movement to make clean energy cheap, and to deliver that energy globally, has the potential to alleviate as much human suffering and injustice as some of the largest, concerted social movements in history.
"If you gave me only one wish for the next 50 years," declared the world's wealthiest man during last week's TED 2010 conference, "I can pick who is president, I can pick a vaccine - or I can pick that an [energy technology] at half the cost with no carbon emissions gets invented, this is the wish I would pick. This is the one with the greatest impact."
Bill Gates is right. And he is not just talking about the impact on climate change, which does of course present a major threat. He is also talking about one of the most critical global imperatives to make poverty history: making clean energy cheap.
"If you could pick just one thing to lower the price of to reduce poverty, by far you would pick energy," said Gates in his introduction. Gates should know as well as any development expert, since the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - the world's largest transparent private foundation - has invested billions of dollars in extreme poverty alleviation since 1994.
Nearly 1.6 billion of our fellow human beings have no access to electricity, and around 2.4 billion people - over one third of global population - meet their basic cooking and heating needs by burning biomass, such as wood, crop waste, and dung. "Without access to modern, commercial energy, poor countries can be trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, social instability and underdevelopment," concludes the International Energy Agency.
Despite the philanthropic focus of his foundation, Bill Gates confided to a rapt audience at the TED conference last week that if he could have one wish granted he wouldn't ask for "vaccines or seeds," he'd ask for clean, cheap energy, and fast.
Bill Gates wants clean, cheap energy more than he wants to pick the next 50 years worth of presidents, even more than he wants a miracle vaccine. At least that's how he ranked his number one wish while describing climate change as the world's greatest challenge to a rapt audience at the TED conference last week.
Just weeks after lending his voice to a growing "innovation consensus" by writing on his blog, Gates Notes, that innovation, not just insulation, must be the focus if we are serious about "getting to zero," Gates' TED speech expanded on what we need to get there:
"We need energy miracles. The microprocessor and internet are miracles. This is a case where we have to drive and get the miracle in a short timeline."
Gates emphasized the need for an energy miracle portfolio that includes carbon capture and storage and nuclear as well as wind and solar. According to CNN's coverage of the conference (the video is not posted yet), Gates showed particular interest in the potential for nuclear waste reprocessing as a source of clean, cheap energy.
A largely-symbolic freeze on domestic spending is the wrong route to trim the deficit. Along with real entitlement reform and winding down the wars, smart government investments in broad-based economic growth must be the keystone of a three-part strategy to truly balance the federal budget. Take energy as a case in point, where investments now to catalyze competitive clean energy technologies and industries will pay big economic dividends down the line.
With rising anxiety about mounting federal deficits, President Obama declared a freeze on all non-defense discretionary spending in his latest budget proposal. Heavy on symbolism and light on impact, the Administration's proposal attacks all of the areas of the government least responsible for the inexorable increase in federal deficits, while potentially starving key parts of the discretionary budget critical to America's economic prosperity.
Let's be clear: ballooning deficits do pose a real long-term threat to the United States' economic security. Under current forecasts, the accumulated deficit could total $20 trillion by 2020. That could hobble Uncle Sam with interest payments on the federal debt nearly as large as the projected total for all domestic discretionary spending. Efforts clearly must be taken to avoid such an unsustainable - and risky - financial future.
That said, curbing domestic spending is the wrong route to trim the deficit. The President's spending freeze applies to only a small fraction of the federal budget, while exempting both the mounting costs of two wars and the ever-rising bill for the nation's entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
By Breakthrough Fellow Danny Spitzberg and Stephen Collins
Earlier this week, fellow Daily Cardinal opinion writer Anthony Cefali posed a question:
"How do we inspire our science program to shoot for the moon, or at least our own modern equivalent?"
Well, we think we have an answer.
Look no further than clean energy. Some are calling it the biggest market opportunity in history. Experts of all stripes have repeatedly stated that the nation that wins the clean-energy race will be the nation that leads the 21st century economy. Discovering and implementing cheap, clean and reliable energy technologies is our generation's final frontier.
But, as Cefali asked, how do we get there? President Obama has proposed doing so by increasing funding for energy education and training through a program called RE-ENERGYSE (short for REgaining our ENERGY Science and Engineering Edge). More than 100 organizations, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, signed a letter last summer urging Congress to support the program, which would augment energy education in universities, training schools, community colleges and even K-12 teacher education. It's easy to see why: UW-Madison professor and energy policy expert Greg Nemet said that he thinks "maybe the biggest opportunity is to take advantage of the fact that we have tens of thousands of students here who could potentially be working on [creating a clean energy economy]." However, Congress ignored last summer's call to action by rejecting Obama's $115 million budget request for RE-ENERGYSE.
China is leading the global race to make clean energy, yet some observers are denying that there is a race at all. They are wrong. Neglecting to acknowledge the economic stakes in the clean energy race and failing to develop a strategy to compete are the reasons why the United States finds itself behind today.
Over at Green Chip Stocks, clean tech market analyst Nick Hodges asks, "Who's Winning the Clean Tech Arms Race?" The answer shouldn't surprise you. Nick cites the deficiencies in U.S. clean energy policy in relative to China's policies as a major reason that "the global clean tech game will be dominated by Chinese players for the foreseeable future."
With Chinese manufacturers poised to dominate emerging clean tech markets, where are all those green jobs that the Democrats have promised? Many of them are going to China, writes SUNY history professor Judith Stein in a recent op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Stein writes that green job rhetoric won't create green jobs without a plan to invest in clean energy manufacturing here in the United States:
"Green jobs are surely needed. But green Democrats simply echo the Atari Democrats of the 1980s, who concluded that traditional manufacturing was disposable and high technology was the wave of the future. During this era, the young Barack Obama attempted - and failed - to find jobs for displaced steelworkers in Chicago."
Stein also writes that China's manufacturing prowess has implications for clean tech innovation as well, as I argue below: "Meanwhile, the Chinese government offers huge subsidies to encourage green-technology manufacturers in the United States to move their production to China. And when manufacturing leaves, research and development operations follow. That's how China attracted battery and fuel-cell research formerly conducted in America."
By Devon Swezey
In his State of the Union Speech, President Obama issued what is now a familiar refrain: "the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy." If there were still doubts about which nation has the edge they were put to rest days later by a bluntly titled front-page article in the New York Times, "China is Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy."
Though the story is not new, the article is the latest indication of the alacrity with which China has emerged as a clean energy powerhouse in the span of just a few years. China now manufactures more solar cells than any nation in the world, and recently surpassed the United States as the largest market for wind turbines in 2009. According to "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant," a recent study by the Breakthrough Institute, China is also a world leader in advanced transportation technologies and batteries, is increasingly localizing the production of nuclear power plants, and has developed some of the world's most advanced CCS technology.
Despite the mounting evidence, many have dismissed the idea that the United States is competing in a "clean energy race" with China, or that it matters.
Some critics assert that characterizing the intense competition as a "race" obscures the climate benefits of greater clean energy deployment throughout the world and the "win-win" nature of a global clean energy economy. The New Republic's Brad Plumer embodies this "it's all good" line of reasoning, writing:
If China zooms ahead and figures out how to make really cheap wind turbines, that doesn't hurt anyone--it just makes the enormous task of cutting global carbon emissions that much easier.
Plumer's casual attitude towards the economic consequences of ceding clean tech manufacturing leadership to China is a slap in the face to U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). The pair has been working hard to secure the new clean energy manufacturing jobs that can help revitalize the industrial heartland.
At Yale e360, environmental journalist Christina Larson similarly suggests that the United States has little to lose if China dominates emerging clean tech industries:
The United States will still gain many new green-collar jobs in installation and maintenance, which can only be locally based, as well as sales teams, conference planners, and other positions already arising to support the growing green-tech field.
Forget about the export-oriented, high-value added, high-wage clean energy manufacturing jobs of the future that Democrats have promised will jumpstart the ailing American economy; the clean energy conference organizing industry is now open for business.
The New America Foundation's Reihan Salam mocks the idea of a "clean technology race," arguing erroneously that the barriers to entry in clean energy are low and that any established competitive advantage will be "ephemeral."
He compares China's clean tech policies to Japan's policies of the 1980s, as if the Japanese government did not succeed in supporting the development of what are still world leading high technology industries in automobiles, electronics, and high value steel manufacturing. While Japan was investing in high-tech industries the United States was simultaneously accelerating the financialization of its economy, creating trillions of dollars of paper wealth that has largely vanished over the last two years.
Indeed, Salam admits that federal investment in technology has spawned entire new industries like aerospace and electronics, but takes pains to paint similar investments that can catalyze the development of new clean technologies as "disastrous."
Apparently our surging clean tech competitors in Asia and the EU didn't get the message.
In a letter to President Obama, clean tech entrepreneurs, investors, and stakeholders joined Sen. Jeff Bingaman in calling for the creation of a Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) to support deployment, create clean energy jobs, and boost long-term U.S. economic competitiveness
A new Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) is critical to "position the U.S. as the global leader in the development and deployment of clean energy technologies for years to come," according to a letter written by the country's leading clean tech entrepreneurs, investors, and stakeholders.
Thirteen leading clean tech companies, including Google, GE, and Kleiner Perkins, wrote to President Obama last week urging him to expedite the creation of a Clean Energy Deployment Administration along the parameters outlined by the Senate's American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 (ACELA).
A new report by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden's (D-OR) office shows that the U.S. is rapidly losing international market share in clean energy technologies. In a Senate hearing last week, Wyden questioned Energy Secretary Steven Chu about falling U.S. competitiveness but the exchange ended with Wyden noting that it was "not clear what the strategy is" to stem the erosion of U.S. market share. As the Wyden report shows, a real clean tech competitiveness strategy, the kind we outline in "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant," could not be more urgent.
U.S. clean tech manufacturers are losing global market share to their international competitors. What is the federal government going to do about it?
That was the question posed last week to Energy Secretary Steven Chu as he testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Chu was speaking on the central role that energy research and development holds in any successful effort to mitigate climate change.
During questioning, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) quotes an earlier statement by Secretary Chu, calling it "the challenge of our time":
"The only question is which countries will invent, manufacture, and export clean technologies, and which countries will become dependent on foreign products?"
Unfortunately, the United States is headed in the wrong direction. According to Senator Wyden, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, "80% of clean energy investments are going to take place outside the United States, even though global trade in environmental goods has doubled just in the last few years."
The Challenge of Our Time: Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked about the U.S. government strategy to boost U.S. clean tech competitiveness, but wound up with more questions than answers.
A recently published report by Senator Wyden's office shows that global exports of environmental goods (the majority of which are associated with clean energy technologies) more than doubled to $215 billion from 2004 to 2008. While U.S. exports have certainly benefited from the major expansion in worldwide demand for clean tech products, it has steadily lost international market share as other nations move more aggressively to capture competitive advantages in the burgeoning clean energy sector.
In the United States, clean tech imports have grown faster than exports, and U.S. exports have not kept up with global demand or international competitors, leading to an erosion of market share for U.S. products. By contrast, other nations, particularly China, have dramatically boosted their exports over the five-year period with China experiencing the greatest value growth in clean tech exports of any nation in the world.
Key figures from the report include:
The United States is the largest import market of environmental goods (EG) as well as the fastest growing import market from 2004-2008 in terms of product value.
In the last five years, the U.S trade deficit in renewable energy products increased by 1,400% to nearly $5.7 billion.
The United States faces declining export market shares in virtually every regional market, while China has substantially increased its market share in every regional market, over the last five years.
In a late night press conference at the close of the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, President Obama declared that a "meaningful deal" had been reached with major emitting nations moments before boarding Air Force One and returning to the United States. While the final structure of "the Copenhagen Accord" is still in question, the content and reverberations of President Obama's speech today leave little doubt that the UNFCCC process, for all intents and purposes, is dead. Whether it continues to shamble on like a zombie through sheer force of inertia is yet to be determined.
In a late night press conference at the close of the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, President Obama declared that a "meaningful deal" had been reached with major emitting nations moments before boarding Air Force One and returning to the United States. While the final structure of "the Copenhagen Accord" is still in question, the content and reverberations of President Obama's speech today leave little doubt that the UNFCCC process, for all intents and purposes, is dead. Whether it continues to shamble on like a zombie through sheer force of inertia is yet to be determined...
Breaking free from the auspices of the UN's 190+ nation negotiating framework, major emitters, including the U.S., China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, appear poised to move forward with or without the rest of the UNFCCC nations.
According to a flurry of tweets and reports from observers on the ground in Copenhagen, Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese chairman of the "G77," a large group of developing nations, is crying bloody murder, declaring that the deal "locks countries into a cycle of poverty forever" and saying "Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush." The EU is grudgingly signing on to the accord "as better than no accord." And protestors, led by increasingly radical activist Bill McKibben, are gathering outside the Bella Center hoisting images of President Obama and crying "shame on you."
"The President has wrecked the UN (and the planet)," declared a press release from McKibben's 350.org.
In next week's New Yorker magazine, journalist Evan Osnos describes the critical role that the Chinese government has played in energy research and innovation. The government's "crash program for clean energy," in part modeled on earlier U.S. government research programs, has helped it catch up to the rest of the world in clean energy technology, and has even enabled it to exert technological leadership in some clean tech industries.
In a forthcoming edition of the New Yorker, journalist Evan Osnos has written a great long essay on the role of the Chinese government in clean energy innovation in China.
Osnos documents how, beginning with the 863 program in 1986, Chinese government officials made a conscious effort to "join the new technological revolution" and make investments in science and technology a priority. Nowhere is this decision more evident today than in the rapid development of clean energy technology in China. In 2001, driven by increasing pollution and concerns over energy security, the Chinese government expanded their investment in energy technology. In 2006, the government expanded their commitment even further, and announced targets for the development of a suite of clean energy technologies:
"In 2006, Chinese leaders redoubled their commitment to new energy technology; they boosted funding for research and set targets for installing wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, and other renewable sources of energy that were higher than goals in the United States. China doubled its wind-power capacity that year, then doubled it again the next year, and the year after. The country had virtually no solar industry in 2003; five years later, it was manufacturing more solar cells than any other country, winning customers from foreign companies that had invented the technology in the first place. As President Hu Jintao, a political heir of Deng Xiaoping, put it in October of this year, China must "seize preëmptive opportunities in the new round of the global energy revolution."
China's 863 program was modeled in part after the American research system used by NIH and the Department of Defense, the latter of which was instrumental in making early investments in technology that enabled the personal computing and information technology revolutions. And Chinese government investments in research and development (R&D) have been rising dramatically each year:
"R. & D. expenditures have grown faster in China than in any other big country--climbing about twenty per cent each year for two decades, to seventy billion dollars last year. Investment in energy research under the 863 Program has grown far faster: between 1991 and 2005, the most recent year on record, the amount increased nearly fifty-fold."
A recent Nature article by Breakthrough Senior Fellow Christopher Green and co-author Isabel Galiana explains why a technology-led policy is the best way to achieve climate stabilization and transition to a future fueled by clean energy technology.
"The fixation on near-term targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions at the climate meeting in Copenhagen has resulted in insufficient attention towards the technological means of achieving them."
So begins "Let the Global Technology Race Begin," an article in Nature by Breakthrough Senior Fellow Christopher Green and co-author Isabel Galiana explaining the need for a technology-led approach to mitigating climate change instead of the emissions reductions target approach that is the hallmark of conventional climate policy.
The authors' focus on a technology builds on the findings of a 2008 Nature article entitled, "Dangerous Assumptions," co-authored by Green, Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke, Jr., and Tom Wigley. They found that the IPCC had significantly underestimated the emissions reductions necessary to achieve climate stabilization and thus, had seriously underestimated the scale of the technology challenge, concluding:
"enormous advances in energy technology will be needed to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at levels that are currently considered acceptable... In the end, there is no question whether technological innovation is necessary -- it is. The question is, to what degree should policy focus explicitly on motivating such innovation?"
Here, Green and Galiana answer this question. Their analysis shows:
"cumulative emissions consistent with minimizing the rise in global temperature (climate stabilization) can be achieved by investing US$100 billion a year for the rest of the century in global energy R&D, testing, demonstration, and infrastructure."
The two experts offer three suggestions for how a technology-led approach to policy would work to catalyze the research, development, and deployment of a steady stream of clean energy technologies:
1) Instead of emissions targets, governments would agree to "credible long-term global commitments to invest in energy R&D," technology and infrastructure financed by "a low carbon price of $5 per tonne of emitted carbon dioxide, which would raise almost $150 billion per year globally and $30 billion in the United States alone."
2) The carbon price would "send a forward pricing signal to deploy new or improved low-carbon technologies" by rising gradually over time "doubling, say, every 10 years."
"These would span the technology spectrum: basic R&D in breakthrough technologies, 'enabling' R&D that allows scale-up of existing technologies (such as utility-scale storage for intermittent solar and wind energy); testing and demonstration projects; end energy-related infrastructure, such as 'smart grid' that help to manage intermittent energy sources."
3) Dedicated trust funds should be created to isolate R&D monies from "political interference." These funds would be overseen "by independent committees drawn from the public and private sectors." Countries that do not engage in R&D could use their portion of the funds "to purchase successfully developed technologies from those that do participate [in R&D]."
Galiana and Green explain how a technology-led policy "inverts the usual relationship between carbon pricing and technology, whereby carbon pricing is naively expected to induce fundamental technological innovation."
"Attaining the 2 degree goal in the United States with existing technology will likely be very expensive. Doing so in the developing world with existing expensive technology is likely to be impossible. ...
While an emissions price is an absolute requirement for an efficient regulatory framework, it is likely not the sole requirement. Due to some imperfections in any market economy, price signals may be dampened or be short circuited. This is particularly true in the market for research and development, where it is well known that firms have incentives to under-invest in research and development (R&D) due to the fact they cannot capture all the returns to R&D--some of those returns spill over to others in the market that did not invest as much. In this case, the emissions price cannot fully motivate the R&D market and therefore a well-designed regulatory program will contain a role for government funding of R&D. ...
In addition to the economic rational for government support of R&D, there is a political case to be made. Spurring R&D and demonstration and deployment of financially risky technology investments may require an emissions price that is not politically viable (that is, it is too high to be politically acceptable). In this case, absent the market imperfections above, the price is simply too low to generate the needed investments and government must step in to support the required levels of from R&D and demonstration and deployment."
-Ray Kopp, Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future, in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Dec. 2, 2009.
Three U.S. Senators and a U.S. Congressman have unveiled new bi-partisan legislation intended to boost the international competitiveness of the United States' ailing solar technology manufacturing industry. The legislation is a commendable first step forward as components of a broader clean energy economy strategy. A full suite of long-term and targeted clean energy technology policies will be necessary for the United States to remain competitive in the global clean energy race.
Last month, U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), as well as Congressman Dave Camp (R-MI) introduced the Solar Manufacturing Jobs Creation Act, intended to boost the international competitiveness the U.S. solar manufacturing industry. After introducing the legislation, Senator Stabenow said it was necessary to "help us win the global race against China and other countries to produce solar technology in the clean energy economy."
The bi-partisan legislation would extend the existing solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which offers a 30 percent tax credit for solar energy investment and deployment, to cover the construction of new solar manufacturing facilities as well. The ITC was recently given an eight-year extension in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) of 2008.
The new legislation would also give solar manufacturers access to the temporary cash grant program created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which has successfully boosted the deployment of renewable technologies, primarily wind power.
The new U.S. legislation is the second in as many months that aims to support the domestic solar industry. In late October, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Solar Technology Roadmap Act, which would require the U.S. Department of Energy to appoint a group of experts to create a long-term plan to guide solar energy R&D and the commercialization of next-generation solar technologies. While the bill only authorizes $2.25 billion for solar R&D over the next five years, it represents a sizable increase in funding and a move toward a more strategic and targeted approach to clean energy development.
If the U.S. is to regain its position as a global leader in clean energy technology, and solar in particular, much more targeted policy support is needed. Both the Solar Technology Roadmap Act and the Solar Manufacturing Jobs Creation Act are important first steps forward in developing a comprehensive clean energy economy strategy capable of revitalizing the U.S. economy and making the United States a world leader in clean energy technology once again.
Benchmarking clean-tech competitiveness: A new report by the Breakthrough Institute and Information Technology & Innovation Foundation provides the first comprehensive analysis of competitive positions among the U.S. and key Asian challengers in the global clean energy race.
The report examines the competitive position of each nation in core clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, and nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, advanced vehicles and batteries, and high-speed rail, as well as the government strategies each nation hopes will strengthen its position in the global clean technology sector. The report also offers recommendations for U.S. federal policymakers for regaining U.S. competitiveness.
I've also included the boost in FY2009 Department of Energy (DOE) R&D budgets provided by the economic stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. As Google's Dan Reicher warned the Senate on Wednesday: when these temporary stimulus funds dry up, the U.S. could fall of a "funding cliff" unless significantly larger allocations are made for clean energy R&D in Congressional legislation.
$15 billion. That is the figure at the heart of a growing consensus of energy innovation experts, all calling for dramatically larger U.S. investment in clean energy research and development. Writing at theEnergyCollective.com, Breakthrough's Jesse Jenkins highlights mounting calls to address what Google Director of Climate Change and Energy Dan Reicher called "a serious energy R&D short-fall" in the current House and Senate climate bills. As Congress debates energy and climate change legislation, a chorus of voices including policy think tanks such as the Brookings Institution, Third Way and the Breakthrough Institute, as well as a collection of both the nation's top research universities and dozens of Nobel-prize winning scientists have joined leading businesses like Google to converge on a $15 billion increase in annual U.S. energy R&D budgets as a critical component of any final legislation.
While biomedical research receives nearly $60 billion in private investment and $30 billion in public investment through the National Institutes of Health, investment in energy R&D leaves a huge innovation gap. Private sector spending is less than $3 billion annually with the government contributing just $5 billion per year more. A National Institutes of Energy and massive increase in federal clean energy spending is needed to fill the energy innovation gap and jumpstart a clean energy revolution.
Friday factoids time: The U.S. biomedical and pharmaceutical industry invests between 10-20 percent of revenues in R&D and new product development, spending $58.8b on R&D in 2007. The U.S. government adds an additional $30 billion per year investment in biomedical R&D through the National Institutes of Health.
In contrast, the U.S. energy sector invests well below $3 billion annually in R&D in an industry with well over a trillion dollars in annual revenue. The energy sector's R&D spending as a percent of revenues - call that figure the industry's innovation intensity - is just 0.23%. That compares to a national average innovation intensity across all industries of 2.6%, or ten-times greater than the energy-sector's innovation intensity. And it pale sin comparison with the innovation intensity of leading technology and innovation-intensive sectors including biomedical technology (10-20%), information technology (10-15%), and semiconductors (16%).
This downright paltry private-sector energy innovation spending leaves a massive energy innovation gap that the U.S. government barely begins to fill, investing only about $5 billion annually in energy R&D. That's barely more than half the levels spent on public research to pursue clean and affordable energy alternatives during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The scale and urgency of our national energy challenges have clearly grown since then, yet the national commitment to energy innovation has moved in the wrong direction. Public R&D spending on health care ($30b) and defense ($80b) signal the scale of true national innovation priorities and begs the question: when will the U.S. get serious about investments in clean energy innovation? When we do, a new National Institutes of Energy and a major increase in federal energy R&D investments are needed to fill the energy innovation gap and spur a clean energy revolution.
The House and Senate appropriations committee reached a final agreement on the FY2010 budget which offered no funding for President Obama's RE-ENERGYSE education program and a total of $66 million for just three out of eight proposed Energy Innovation Hubs
Yesterday, the tiny window of opportunity for President Obama's national energy education initiative, RE-ENERGYSE (Regaining our ENERGY Science and Engineering Edge), unceremoniously vanished, at least for FY2010, when House and Senate Conferees on the Energy and Water Appropriations bill completed the final conference agreement and provided no funding for RE-ENERGYSE.
This isn't a total surprise. RE-ENERGYSE - originally a $115 billion initiative designed to support the education of the next generation of scientists, engineers, and energy innovators - was allocated only $7.5 million by the House appropriations committee and then subsequently slashed by the Senate committee earlier this summer. Not surprising, maybe, but certainly disappointing and representative of a larger lack of support for American clean energy competitiveness at a time when energy and climate change is a top national policy priority and several Asian nations are aggressively positioning themselves to corner burgeoning clean energy technology markets.
After both the House and Senate appropriations were announced in July, the Breakthrough Institute's Jesse Jenkins and Teryn Norris penned an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle comparing the number of science, math, and engineering undergraduates in the U.S. to those in China.
"Only 15 percent of undergraduate degrees earned in the United States are in science and engineering, compared with 50 percent in China, according to the National Academies... If the United States had responded to the Soviet launch of Sputnik the way today's Congress is responding to the Asian energy challenge, America would have lost the space race and been left behind in the industries that fueled a half century of economic progress."
Perhaps even more disheartening, is that more than 100 universities, professionals, and youth groups - in other words those individuals most cognizant of the need for an education program focused on building American competitiveness - submitted a letter urging Congress to fully fund RE-ENERGYSE, which it appears was roundly ignored.
A growing consensus of experts, including the Breakthrough Institute and Third Way, advocate for a dramatic increase in federal investments in clean energy R&D and for new models of federal innovation in order to spur a prosperous clean energy economy and overcome the greatest challenge of our time
Today, the United States faces a nation-defining challenge and opportunity - getting America running on clean energy. In the past, the United States has confronted other significant obstacles by making a national commitment to invest the resources necessary to overcome it. In light of the clean energy, climate, and economic challenges we now face, the Breakthrough Institute and Third Way will release a report detailing why the U.S. must make just this sort of national commitment, once again, by scaling-up clean energy R&D on the order of $15 billion per year and creating a National Institutes of Energy to expand our clean energy innovation capacity and jumpstart a clean energy revolution.
This Thursday September 17, the Breakthrough Institute, Third Way, and U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will be holding a forum on Capitol Hill to reveal, Jumpstarting a Clean Energy Revolution with a National Institutes of Energy, and to discuss how a focused innovation program will lead to a prosperous clean energy economy by making promising clean energy technologies a reality.
The Breakthrough Institute and Third Way report is the latest among a growing chorus of expert voices advocating the importance and urgency of both a dramatic increase in federal investments in clean energy R&D and the implementation of new models for federal innovation. The following is a selection of recent reports and recommendations, all part of the gathering consensus that the U.S. currently lacks both the structure and the financial commitment necessary to spur the dramatic clean energy innovation necessary to meet critical national economic, energy and climate objectives.
"Jumpstarting a Clean Energy Revolution with a National Institutes of Energy," a policy memo co-authored by the Breakthrough Institute's Director of Climate and Energy Policy, Jesse Jenkins, and Third Way's Joshua Freed and Avi Zevin, is a joint effort by both think tanks to jumpstart American energy research and development.
In September 2009, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) joined the Breakthrough Institute and Third Way to release the report and issue a call for significantly increased public investment to catalyze clean energy innovation.
You can watch the video of the release event below or click here.
The memo calls for a national commitment to energy innovation that includes direct support for the research and development of new and existing clean technologies and creates a structure for energy research, modeled on the National Institutes of Health, capable of coordinating large scale R&D efforts.
The memo acknowledges that the U.S. faces a "defining challenge" in its effort to transition to clean energy. Based on historical evidence of national commitments made to confront significant challenges, the authors suggest two key components of a national effort to address the clean energy challenge in the United States.
1) Increase federal investment in energy R&D by $15 billion per year: In line with President Obama's 2009 budget request, the scale of investment for comparable national priorities, and the recommendations of innovation experts, the authors propose a sustained $15 billion per year increase in federal clean energy R&D to approximately $20 billion per year. This level of funding is necessary to both create new breakthrough technologies and drive improvements to existing technology, enabling the production of clean energy at significantly higher efficiencies and lower costs.
2) Create a National Institutes of Energy: Modeled on the National Institutes of Health, a new National Institutes of Energy (NIE) would effectively apply R&D funding to the development of new, low-cost commercial clean energy technologies. The NIE would function as a nationwide network of regionally based, commercially focused, and coordinated innovation institutes. Alongside other effective federal energy R&D agencies, an NIE would critically strengthen the U.S. clean energy innovation system.
Clean energy technology hubs seem to be sprouting up all over the globe - except in the United States - and business leaders are pointing to massive public investment as the missing link preventing the U.S. from leading the clean energy race
Clean energy technology hubs are rapidly developing all over the world, except in the United States. Business leaders who met at the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit acknowledged that massive government investment has created vibrant clean energy markets in countries around the world, but unfortunately the U.S. has not taken part in this trend. As The Business Insider reports, Google Green Energy Czar, Bill Weihl noted:
"Other countries, China being one of the major examples, are investing very heavily in this space across the whole innovation pipeline...from shower to power, from the idea in the shower to generating the power (in a) commercial scale enterprise."
Just yesterday, the China Greentech Initiative released a report describing how large-scale government investment is driving a clean energy market that could be worth upwards of US$1 trillion annually.
While China is home to some of the fastest growing clean energy centers, particular in the solar industry, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, India, North Africa, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi are all directly investing in creating domestic clean energy hubs.
A recent RAND Review offers the Tianjin Binhai New Area (TBNA) seven recommendations to help it become an economic powerhouse, including making solar energy cheap. But thanks to a stimulus that funds "indigenous innovation," China is already ahead of the game, particularly in the clean energy sector.
A recent RAND Review provides a slew of recommendations to help China expand the Tianjin Binhai New Area (TBNA) and turn it into a driver of economic progress. As a result of an enormous stimulus package (second only to that of the U.S.) with significant allocations for "indigenous innovation" in science and technology, China may already be well on its way to taking those suggestions to heart, particularly in the clean energy sector.
Tianjin Binhai New Area (TBNA), located in China's Bohai Rim region, has been a strong center for modern industry and manufacturing. But in 2006, the Chinese government mandated that TBNA become the next "regional engine for economic growth." To that end, the area has been the beneficiary of significant government support aimed at making the area the country's next "economic powerhouse" and orienting it towards leadership in providing solutions to national problems: among them, rising energy demand.
According to RAND:
"The goal of TBNA is to present an alternative to the traditional industrial economy, offering China a model of sustainable development and eco-friendly industry. Innovation in science and technology lies at the core of this vision of economic and environmental development."
In the report, RAND offers TBNA guidance in its endeavor to meet China's growing technology needs, both domestically and internationally, by recommending that it pursue seven emerging technologies including cheap solar energy and electric-hybrid vehicles.
On September 17, Breakthrough Institute, Third Way, and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will hold an event where they will discuss the findings of a new BTI/Third Way paper calling for an increase in investment in clean energy R&D and the creation of a new National Institutes of Energy in order to create a clean and prosperous energy economy.
The Breakthrough Institute and Third Way have prepared a new report detailing how the United States can jumpstart a clean energy revolution through investing in research and development and creating a National Institutes of Energy (akin to the NIH) to spur the development of innovative clean energy technologies.
Breakthrough Institute, Third Way, and U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will be holding a forum detailing the findings of Third Way and the Breakthrough Institute's new paper and describing how a focused program of innovation will help make promising clean energy technologies a reality and create a clean and prosperous energy economy.
Please see the event details below. We hope you can join us for this exciting event!
Event:
A National Institutes of Energy: The Clean Energy Revolution Needs R&D
Date:
Thursday, September 17th
Time:
10:00 - 11:00 am
Coffee will be served
Location:
Dirksen Senate Office Building
SD-G-11
Washington, DC 20002
Please RSVP to rsvp@thirdway.org and indicate this event or reply to this email If you have any questions, please contact Jen Pengelly at 202-775-3768 ext. 214 or jpengelly@thirdway.org.
ABOUT THIRD WAY: Third Way is the leading think tank of the moderate wing of the progressive movement. We work with elected officials, candidates, and advocates to develop and advance the next generation of moderate policy ideas. For more information about Third Way please visit www.thirdway.org.
ABOUT THE BREAKTHROUGH INSTITUTE: The Breakthrough Institute is one of America's leading think tanks developing climate and energy policy solutions. Since 2002 Breakthrough has been a pioneering advocate of an innovation-centered approach to the nation's energy and climate challenges, calling for major federal investments to make clean and low-carbon energy technologies cheap and abundant, strengthen America's economic competitiveness and energy security, and slow global warming. For more information, please visit www.thebreakthrough.org
Wall Street and the wind industry are overjoyed by the uplifting impact of ARRA-backed cash grants, but the boom caused by this short-term stimulus program could be setting the wind sector up for yet another bust without a long-term deployment strategy focused on making clean energy cheap
That's what Ethan Zindler, head of New Energy Finance Ltd, proclaimed to the Wall Street Journal in response to emerging evidence that the government's $3 billion dollar cash grant renewable energy stimulus program is successfully incentivizing private investment in the wind sector.
After falling into the doldrums for the past six-months, the wind industry is roaring back to life thanks to direct public investments enacted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also known as the stimulus bill. A DOE and Treasury-funded cash grant incentive program is helping to grease the pipeline for private investors looking to finance renewable projects, particularly wind farms, slated to begin construction in 2009 or 2010. According to the WSJ, just four weeks into the program $800 million in grants have already been submitted and Wall Street bankers predict that figure to reach $10 billion by the end of 2010.
The cash grant program was created to rescue the clean energy industry, a critical American growth sector, from the malaise of the credit crisis. The tax credits (PTC and ITC) that usually incite clean energy development are worthless in an economic climate where the big financial firms that typically absorb them, on behalf of project developers, are in crisis.
The solution: Congress tucked a two-year cash grant into ARRA worth 30% of qualifying wind, solar, and geothermal project costs, replacing the normal production and investment tax credits. With the money from the program officially flowing since August, the grants are breathing new vigor into clean energy investment, speeding America's economic recovery.
With big players like Morgan Stanley and Citigroup investing $120 million each to finance new wind farms, the wind sector is generating more than clean energy - it's producing clear evidence that public investment really does drive private investment. By covering 30% of a new project's cost, the cash grant program will spur more than two dollars in private investment for every public dollar, successfully leveraging taxpayer money to drive significant private investment in cleaner energy, greater energy security, and accelerated economic recovery.
The projected success of the cash grants, which bankers calculate will lead to 9-15% annual returns per deal, suggests that perhaps, public investment is even more effective at driving private investment than setting an economy-wide carbon price, an oft-suggested strategy to motivate private financing in renewable RD&D.
A recent report, released by geo-engineering experts at the UK's Institution of Mechanical Engineering, highlights the viability of geo-engineered technologies, such as algae coated buildings, as a stop-gap solution for rising carbon emissions and imminent climate change
No - this is not an obscure Ghostbusters reference. According to the Financial Times, geo-engineering experts at the UK-based Institution of Mechanical Engineering (IME) have deemed "slime-covered buildings", along with artificial trees and reflective buildings, viable options for removing carbon from the atmosphere.
Although "slime" is a slightly hyperbolic reference to strips of carbon-consuming algae, a recent report by IME says the substance can be installed via bio-reactors on building walls to absorb carbon from the air. Before it decomposes (and really gets slimy) the algae is collected and either decarbonized or reprocessed as fuel. While "slime" carbon capture is still in the planning stages, it is an extremely attractive geo-engineering option because its waste could be used as a biofuel and it would require no additional land to deploy.
The report, entitled "Geo-engineering: Giving us Time to Act," is intended to advance acceptance of geo-engineering as a potential climate change mitigator and proposes a 75-100 year roadmap for countering climate that includes geo-engineering as part, not all, of the solution. According to the IME:
Geo-engineering is not an encompassing solution to global warming. It is however, another potential component in our approach to climate change that could prove the world with extra time to decarbonise the global economy, a task which has yet to begin in earnest.
Much of the resistance to geo-engineering innovations - such as faux-trees that capture carbon more effectively than the real thing - is based on the fear that these technologies will replace clean energy technology as the preferred solution to reducing carbon intensity. The report emphasizes, however, that geo-engineering is not the so-called silver bullet solution, it's a stop-gap measure that will help manage the world's carbon overstock while clean energy is being developed and deployed.
In a continued look at the role of nationalism in the clean energy race, Mother Jones' Kevin Drum applauds the rhetoric behind the clean energy race narrative but raises concerns about over-zealous nationalism and xenophobia towards Asia
A second piece on nationalism in the context of the clean energy race was published on Mother Jones' blog MoJo, and is evidence that the growing body of discourse around this issue has struck a very resonant chord. In the post, entitled "Harnessing Nationalism," Kevin Drum offers poignant, if somewhat veiled, criticism of the rhetoric behind the "clean energy race" narrative.
Inspired by The New Republic's Bradford Plumer, the post starts with a lengthy quote whose primary point is this: the clean energy race is not a zero-sum competition because everyone stands to benefit if China makes a significant effort to reduce emissions by investing in clean technology.
First, as Drum puts it, Plumer's commentary may be an attempt at "intellectual honesty," but honesty doesn't make it completely accurate. True, the whole world will benefit from advancements in clean energy no matter where it comes from, but China is not motivated to compete in the clean tech industry by emissions reductions - it is driven by the potential for economic gain.
As a (rapidly) developing nation, economic development, not emissions targets, is the highest priority. Thus, the race is not about emissions, it is about whose economy stands to benefit from leadership in clean technology.
Drum views the clean energy race through "green" tinted glasses, as well, preferring the "race" rhetoric to the alternative: the apocalyptic narrative that has clearly failed to motivate effective climate change action. Rhetorically speaking, framing the need to reduce carbon emissions as a clean energy race is both more engaging and more productive. As he aptly declares:
If this kind of thing got us to the moon, maybe it can save the planet as well. I say we go along.
The clean energy race, however, is more than just a new and improved framing mechanism or encouragement of America's honed nationalistic tendencies - it is an economic truth. What Drum misses when he writes off the recent proliferation of clean energy articles as hype, is that this issue could both be an effective rhetorical tool as well as a humbling reality.
Clean Skies TV profiles Breakthrough Senior Fellow and Professor Emeritus of Physics at NYU, Martin Hoffert, a proponent of space-based solar energy generation
The ARPA-E initiative is a project of the Department of Energy, its purpose is to fund "high-risk, high-payoff transformational R&D ... that can enhance the economic and energy security of the United States through reductions of imports of energy from foreign sources, etc." (more here)
Funded with money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, one would think that ARPA-E, being a semantic cousin of the Pentagon's well-known DARPA division, famous for its assisted walking suits, robotic espionage dragonflys and, of course, the internet, would have a slew of strange projects on their roster. However, one scientist, whose rejected space based solar program requested a modest $2 million dollars for further testing, feels the DOE's selection process was a bit lopsided.
Senior Breakthrough Fellow and Professor Emeritus of Physics at NYU, Martin Hoffert, has long made the case for space-based solar power as an alternative to earth-moored models. Up beyond the filters of pollution and the limits of daylight, the sun's energy is nearly constant and undiffused. Using solar panels affixed to a satellite or, say, the International Space Station, the idea would be to beam the energy back to terrestrial sources in the form of microwaves or some other heretofore undiscovered method.
Hoffert even has the PR effort down pat, as he explains in a segment for Clean Skies TV: "We've spent a fortune on the International Space Station, and people are still saying, 'What have we got from it?' Well, we could probably beam power from the International Space Station to various locations along its ground track, including some in developing countries that have no prospect of getting energy."
Now that certainly sounds "transformational"; and for $2 million dollars it's a no-brainer, right? But out of the 3500 applications the ARPA-E program received, only 40 - 60 (roughly 1.1%) will receive funding of between $3 to $5 million dollars. While Hoffert's program got the snub, in the approved pile is a project that aims to capture the heat trapped in asphalt parking lots and other paved surfaces via a series of tubes filled with water.
On his Dot Earth blog, NY Times science reporter, Andy Revkin, asks the $2 million dollar question: "Which project strikes you as more 'transformational'?"
In a recent speech at Harvard, energy secretary Steven Chu again supported an agenda to make the US a leading clean energy innovator. But Congress continues to reject strategic policies that would make this a reality.
In a speech yesterday at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, energy secretary Steven Chu again repeated his declaration that nothing less than a technological "revolution" is necessary to meet America's energy challenge and to ensure the US position as a leading global economic power.
Speaking alongside Congressman Ed Markey, Chu told his audience that future US prosperity depends upon widely deploying renewable energy, developing carbon capture and storage capabilities, and increasing energy efficiency--but most importantly, it depends upon becoming a leading innovator in clean energy technologies.
Chu minced no words when he described this critical juncture for the US in the
global clean energy industry:
"We're faced with the following choices: We can become the leader of a new industrial revolution and lay the foundation of our future economic prosperity ... or we can hope the price of oil will go back to $30 a barrel, deny climate change is happening and let other countries take the lead in energy innovation."
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $377 million in funding to establish 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) pursuing potentially path-breaking basic and translational research at the cutting-edge of clean energy innovation. Of this funding, $277 comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, otherwise known as the stimulus package) and $100 million comes from the DOE's FY2009 budget. The funding will be sustained over the next five years, with the DOE committing $100 million of its budget to the research centers each year.
"Meeting the challenge to reduce our dependence on imported oil and curtail greenhouse gas emissions will require significant scientific advances," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu as he announced the new funding for EFRCs. "These centers will mobilize the enormous talents and skills of our nation's scientific workforce in pursuit of the breakthroughs that are essential to expand the use of clean and renewable energy."
The majority of EFRCs are based in universities, with several harnessing the skills and resources of the national laboratories, and just three awarded to non-profit organizations and private corporations. Over the course of the program, these centers will employ over 1,800 people in research into four primary realms: Renewable and Carbon-Neutral Energy (including Solar Energy Utilization, Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems, Biofuels, and Geological Sequestration of CO2); Energy Efficiency (Clean and Efficient Combustion, Solid State Lighting, Superconductivity); Energy Storage (Hydrogen Research, Electrical Energy Storage); and Crosscutting Science (Catalysis, Materials under Extreme Environments).
Two new studies published last month -- one by the Office of Tony Blair and the Climate Group, the other by the Global Climate Network and Center for American Progress (CAP) -- strongly advocate a climate policy strategy based on direct government investment in energy technology development and deployment.
The studies independently reach conclusions similar to the Breakthrough Institute's and are yet another indication of "The Emerging Climate Consensus," which recognizes the limits of carbon pricing and advocates major increases in federal funding to deploy low-carbon energy technologies and drive down their costs through direct public investment in RD&D (research, development, and demonstration), deployment, and supporting infrastructure.
"Governments should adopt a strategic top-down approach to ensure that critical technologies arrive on time and provide investment in disruptive options to allow radical transformation in the future... The reality is that carbon pricing does not address many other market failures along the innovation chain."
The study argues that direct public support is crucial to develop and deploy new technologies: "Market failures along the innovation chain require public spending to drive technologies down their cost curve to a point where the carbon price can take over and accelerate their deployment." Echoing the Breakthrough Institute, International Energy Agency, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu (and defying critics like Joseph Romm), the report once again concludes that energy technologies must undergo major developments to meet emission reduction targets:
"Although we have the technologies we need through to 2020, new technologies -- many available but not yet commercially proven -- will be needed to meet the more challenging long-term goals. Therefore, at the same time as we deploy existing solutions, we must invest in future options."
Despite President Obama's call for an energy revolution, it is up to Congress to provide funding. The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-e) made a recent call for research proposals into "high-risk, high-payoff transformational energy-related R&D," for projects that "(1) translate scientific discoveries and cutting-edge inventions into technological innovations and (2) accelerate transformational technological advances in areas that industry by itself is not likely to undertake because of high technical or financial risk."
Over 3,500 research teams submitted proposals for a slice of the available $150 million. As a result, over 98% of applicants we "discouraged" from submitting a full application.
Sure, some of the applications were "undoubtedly unrealistic, fundamentally flawed, written in crayon, or the like," as Andrew Revkin aptly noted at Dot Earth. But with 98% of all proposals rejected, there's got to be another explanation for the high rejection rate as well. Surely at least 5%, 10%, maybe even one third of these proposals are worth further consideration. Remember: this round of project proposals was simply to get into the next round of consideration where ARPA-e program managers would being the real project grant selection process. No, the reason so many proposals were rejected has more to do with the fact that there is simply not nearly enough money to fund all the good, potentially game-changing clean energy ideas out there.
This problem is not unique to this ARPA-e or this round of research proposals. It is a chronic symptom of this country's (under)commitment to clean energy.
Policymakers should employ a portfolio of policies that "supports a broad range of initiatives from basic research through demonstration" of clean energy technologies, the National Academies' Committee on America's Energy Future recommends.
The United States needs a new "sustained national commitment" to improving energy efficiency and accelerating both the development and deployment of clean energy technologies, according to a major new report from the National Academies Press (NAP).
Authored by the National Academies' Committee on America's Energy Future, the recently released paper is the first part in a longer report, titled America's Energy Future: Technology and Transformation. The result of a major study initiated in 2007, the report is designed to inform policymakers about the state of development, costs, implementation barriers, and impacts of current energy technology and potential options for the future and presents eight key findings (summarized below).
Policymakers should employ a portfolio of policies that "supports a broad range of initiatives from basic research through demonstration," the Committee recommends, adding the typical cautionary note, that policymakers should strive to avoid "select[ing] technology winners and losers,"
America's Energy Future explains that the scope and scale of the U.S. energy challenge requires that the U.S. take advantage of available energy efficiency improvements, deploy emerging clean energy technologies, and fund long-term investments in research and development of new technologies. No single component of that strategy is sufficient. According to the report:
"'Business as usual' approaches for obtaining and using energy will be inadequate for achieving the needed transformation. The efforts required will involve not only substantial new investments by the public and private sector in research, development, demonstration, and deployment--in virtually all aspects of the energy infrastructure--but also new public policies and regulations on energy production, distribution, and use."
The authors also acknowledge that the "the U.S. energy system has developed in response to an array of uncoordinated market forces and shifting public policies," the result of the fact that the United States has never before advanced a comprehensive set of national energy policies. The report calls for a concerted, coordinated and sustained suite of federal policies and investments to advance clean energy technologies and transform the U.S. energy sector, such as the Breakthrough Institute's proposal to make clean energy cheap and abundant.
Yesterday the U.S. Senate passed the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill (H.R. 3183) appropriating $34.3 billion in energy spending for FY2010. The bill supports Barack Obama's campaign promise to shut down Nevada's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility and funds numerous water initiatives set-forth by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Notably absent, however, is any funding for RE-ENERGYSE (REgaining our ENERGY Science and Engineering Edge), Obama's proposed initiative to close the energy education gap by preparing young Americans to compete in the race for clean energy. From Obama's initial proposal of $115 million, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees rejected the program by cutting funding to $7 million and $0, respectively. The bill that passed through the Senate, by an 85-9 vote, contained no mention of the forward-thinking and much-needed education program.
Breakthrough Institute believes the clean energy race demands a vigorous federal investment of at least $30-50 billion per year in clean energy. In contrast, Romm ardently supports weaker legislation that would invest just $10 billion per year, less than one quarter of China's planned investments. That may be acceptable to Joe Romm -- but it is no way to win the clean energy race.
Romm asserted that our op-ed "attacks" President Obama and Democratic leaders, when in fact it calls on Congress to support Obama's RE-ENERGYSE energy education program
and urges greater public investment in clean energy to compete with
Asian challengers. Yet Romm never mentioned the central focus of the
op-ed -- RE-ENERGYSE and our efforts to rally support behind it,
including a recent sign-on letter with over 100 organizations
-- and instead criticized us for what he called "willfully misleading
nonsense" about Asian countries' planned investments in clean energy.
Romm also criticized us for asserting that Congress must strengthen
the Waxman-Markey bill with greater investments in clean energy to
compete with Asian challengers and accelerate our transition to a clean
energy economy. Why? Because Romm apparently believes the Waxman-Markey
proposal -- which would invest only $10 billion per year in clean
energy and energy efficiency, less than 0.1% of U.S GDP -- is sufficient to win the clean energy
race. It is not.
"Waxman-Markey would complete America's transition to a clean energy economy, which started with the stimulus bill," reads the title of a prominently featured post
on Romm's website, a claim he has repeated multiple times.
"Waxman-Markey would generate more clean energy action than any piece
of legislation passed by any country in the history of the world!" exclaimed Romm in another recent post as part of his consistent and ongoing cheer-leading for the legislation.
Today, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) expressed "strong opposition" to the Senate's attempt to cut funding for two key Obama administration energy initiatives, which received no support in the recent committee markup of Energy and Water Appropriations bill. The bill significantly scales back support for the administration's Energy Innovation Hubs, and its completely zeroes $115 million in funding requested for President Obama's new energy education initiative, RE-ENERGYSE.
OMB raised concerns about certain provisions, saying it strongly
opposes reductions in funding for Energy Innovation Hubs, and the
science and engineering education outreach campaign RE-ENERGYSE
program, among other concerns.
"The Hubs will advance highly promising areas of energy science and
technology from their early states and RE-ENERGYSE will help develop
the science and engineering workforce needed to bring those ideas to
life by encouraging tens of thousands of American students to pursue
careers in science, engineering, and entrepreneurship related to clean
energy," OMB said.
The Breakthrough Institute recently organized a letter signed by over 100 institutions and universities urging Congress to fully fund the Re-ENERGYSE program, which they said "will train America's future energy workforce, accelerate our transition to a prosperous clean-energy economy, and ensure that we lead the world's burgeoning clean technology industries."
Yesterday, Breakthrough's Jesse Jenkins and Teryn Norris penned an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle warning that without a vigorous commitment to education and innovation in order to bridge the energy education gap, we will effectively cede the clean-energy race to our Asian competitors.
The full Senate took up the $34.3 billion Energy and Water Appropriations bill yesterday, and plans to clear it by the end of the week.
With China, South Korea and Japan all moving aggressively to corner the burgeoning global clean energy market, Asian competitors may dominate the clean energy sector if Congress doesn't act now to strengthen the Waxman-Markey bill with much larger investments in our own clean energy economy and fully support President Obama's energy education initiative, Norris and Jenkins argue.
Monday's op-ed comes one year after Breakthrough proposed a similar National Energy Education Act, calling for an effort on par with the original National Defense Education Act of 1958, which invested billions each year to train and empower the young generation that won the space race and invented the technologies that catapulted the U.S. and the world into the Information Age.
Breakthrough Institute is planning to release a full report on the USA-Asia clean energy race within the next few weeks, so stay tuned.
As President Obama put it in his Congressional address in February:
"We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient... New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea. Well I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders -- and I know you don't either. It is time for America to lead again."
President Obama is right. However, as Norris and Jenkins warn in today's op ed:
"If America does not take immediate action to bridge its energy education gap - and if we fail to make substantially larger investments in our own clean-energy economy - we will effectively cede the clean-energy race to Asia. A decade from now, we may still find the burgeoning clean-energy economy promised by Obama and Democratic leaders. It will simply be headquartered in China."
You can read the extended version of the op ed below...
A recent study at NYU's Stern School of Business analyzes the returns on government energy R&D investments and comes to the conclusion that geothermal and wind power could, for a relatively low price, become cheaper than fossil fuel electricity in a matter of years.
The study used a well-known method of analyzing technology cycles that predicts learning curves for emerging technologies. This "S-curve" heuristic guesses that the performance of new technologies, plotted against effort (i.e. total money invested) is shaped like an S.
Early in the life of the technology, improvements are gradual as the basic properties are worked out and an effective design is formed. Next comes a period of rapid growth as the now-stable technology captures "process innovations" and economies of scale. Finally, the rate of improvement slows as the technology becomes mature and improvements become hampered by the dominant structure of the technology and its industry - until the potential emergence of a new competing technology with its own S-curve.
Although such an analysis makes some major simplifications, these S-curve cycles are well-documented throughout history in technologies as diverse as disk drives, steam engines, semiconductors, and automobiles (to name a few).
With the S-curve model in hand, the authors of the report sought to determine the curves of some major alternative energy technologies in order to project how much investment is necessary to reduce the their marginal costs.
RE-ENERGYSE, a program aimed at 'REgaining our ENERGY Science and Engineering Edge', was given $7 million by the House appropriations bill and $0 by the Senate Appropriations Committee, embarrassingly shy of $115 million requested in the President's FY2010 budget. The proposal was sent back to the DOE with a request to distinguish between current and potential future programmatic efforts (according to ScienceInsider). In other words, it was rejected.
Revkin asked the White House about the funding cut and Kenneth Baer at the Office of Management and Budget sent him this reply:
"The appropriations process is ongoing, and we look forward to working with Congress to make sure there is the needed funding to prepare our students for the jobs of the growing clean energy sector."
The sign-on letter will hopefully boost the Administration's efforts, as it summarizes the clear need for new energy education funding and demonstrates a broad constituency in supportive of such a program.
The Japanese government is embarking on a national mission to make solar energy as cheap as conventional sources of energy in real, unsubsidized terms.
Motivated in part by its loss of dominance in the solar energy
industry, Japan has recently announced a new national project for the
widespread deployment of solar PV technologies in order to drive the
price of solar energy toward that of conventional energy sources. In
short, Japan plans to make solar energy cheap.
In a speech laying out the his strategy for Japan to lead the world
in a "low carbon revolution", Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso announced
his vision for Japan to be "the number one solar power in the world."
He also recognized that the principle barrier to widespread adoption of
solar energy was its high price:
How do we become number one in the world in terms of solar power generation? In order to achieve this, we must put an end to the following vicious cycle: costs are high because of lack of demand, and demand remains stagnant due to high costs. Above all else, I think a strong political will to create 'demand through policies,' is necessary.
In order to cut this vicious cycle, Japan has proposed to make solar energy cheap through a combination of energy innovation and government policies to spur demand-a straightforward and effective approach to drive both economies of scale and potentially transformative innovation. Prime Minister Aso has set a goal of increasing installed solar capacity by 20 times its current level by 2020, and 40 times by 2030.
A group of over 100 universities, professional associations, and student groups joined the Breakthrough Institute yesterday in submitting a letter urging the U.S. Senate to fully support the Obama administration's RE-ENERGYSE initiative.
PRESS CONTACT:
Jesse Jenkins (510-550-8930 x465 or 503-333-1737)
jesse@thebreakthrough.org
Teryn Norris (510-550-8930 x464 or 510-593-3716)
teryn@thebreakthrough.org
A group of over 100 universities, professional associations, and student groups joined the Breakthrough Institute Tuesday in submitting a letter urging the U.S. Senate to fully support the Obama administration's national energy education initiative. The initiative, named "RE-ENERGYSE" (REgaining our ENERGY Science and Engineering Edge), would produce thousands of highly-skilled U.S. energy workers and develop new energy education programs at American universities and K-12 schools.
The Senate is poised to reject the proposal in its FY2010 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill by cutting the RE-ENERGYSE program's funding to $0 from the $115 million requested in President Obama's FY2010 budget. Mr. Obama announced the initiative in a speech to the National Academy of Sciences in April, stating, "The nation that leads the world in 21st century clean energy will be the nation that leads in the 21st century global economy... [RE-ENERGYSE] will prepare a generation of Americans to meet this generational challenge."
According to the Department of Energy, the program would develop between 5,000 and 8,500 highly educated scientists, engineers, and other professionals to enter the clean energy field by 2015, which would rise to 10,000 -17,000 professionals by 2020. The Technical Training and K-12 Education subprogram would create between 200 to 300 community college and other training programs to prepare thousands of technically skilled workers for clean energy jobs.
The letter, which was distributed to every Senate office on Tuesday, urged lawmakers to fund RE-ENERGYSE at the full $115 million request. "America is in danger of losing its global competitiveness and the [global] clean energy race without substantial new investments in STEM education," wrote the signatories, which included 53 colleges and universities and dozens of student and youth groups. "RE-ENERGYSE... will train America's future energy workforce, accelerate our transition to a prosperous clean energy economy, and ensure that we lead the world's burgeoning clean technology industries."
The 40th anniversary of the US moon landing highlights lessons for the emerging clean energy race. While there are key similarities and differences between the space race of the Cold War era and clean energy race of today, one thing is certain: the need for vigorous and sustained public investment to drive dramatic technological innovation.
This week marks the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's moonwalk, the event which made the US the first and only nation to accomplish one of the greatest technological feats in human history. While space-race aficionados will argue that US-Soviet competition continued beyond the 1969 moon landing, for the layperson, Armstrong's 'small step' marked the end of the space race.
In 2009, the United States faces a new global competition, one that will have far greater implications for the future of our nation and the world: the clean energy race
The dual challenges of climate change and increased economic competitiveness are driving nations to develop new energy technologies that harness earth's abundant renewable resources. This technology is increasingly viewed as central to our economic fortunes with renewable energy and other clean technologies poised to be the next big growth sector. On several occasions President Obama has acknowledged that:
'The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.'
We've heard calls for a New Apollo project for renewable energy before, and I will not discuss the merits of such a scheme here. Instead, on this historic anniversary, I will compare the space race of the Cold War era and the clean energy race of today--both similarities and differences are apparent, and both offer insights into America's current standing in today's clean energy race.
President Obama has repeatedly pledged $150 billion to clean energy research and development, but with just $1 billion per year in R&D funding, the Waxman-Markey bill falls far short. Will Obama listen to 34 Nobel laureates urging him to keep his promise?
With this week's letter urging Obama to ensure "stable support" for a Clean Energy Technology Fund in the climate bill currently before the Senate, America's top scientists and energy experts signaled that the scientific community will hold Obama to his promise of investing $150 billion in clean energy research and development.
The names on the letter represent a virtual who's who of the upper echelons of the American scientific community, led by former Federation of American Scientists Board Chairman Burton Richter. Its supporters include Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google, former special assistant to the Energy Secretary during the Clinton administration, and a former candidate for Energy Secretary under Obama.
These science and energy experts are insisting that the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) be strengthened from its current form, which would invest just one-fifteenth of the $15 billion per year Obama pledges for clean energy R&D in his current policy plans. "This is a serious deficiency," the letter warns.
As Congress debates climate and energy legislation, Asia is moving rapidly to win the clean energy race. So warns a new article in the Washington Post that should serve as a wake-up call to America's leadership at the highest level.
Despite Obama's intentions to increase America's international competitiveness, the article reports that the amount and scale of investments in renewable energy programs coupled with ambitious renewable energy use targets are putting these Asian nations on pace to surpass programs set forth by both the U.S. economic stimulus package and the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the massive climate and energy bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Citing Breakthrough's Jesse Jenkins, the article warns:
"If the Waxman-Markey climate bill is the United States' entry into the clean energy race, we'll be left in the dust by Asia's clean-tech tigers," said Jesse Jenkins, director of energy and climate policy at the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland, Calif.-based think tank that favors massive government spending to address global warming.
[Update, 7/13/09: On July 9th, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to completely zero out all funding for President Obama's RE-ENERGYSE energy education program.]
President Obama's national energy education program designed to create a generation of clean energy innovators has been cut from $115 to $7 million by a House subcommittee. The cuts could mean that fewer than 100 scholarships, not 1,500 scholarships, will be available annually.
Energy analysts say that one of the key barriers to developing clean energy technologies that can compete with fossil fuels is the lack of scholarships both for young scientists to do basic research and for engineers seeking to apply discoveries in the real world.
The Administration's energy education program, called RE-ENERGYSE (REgaining our ENERGY Science and Engineering Edge), would have resulted in "the development of leading edge undergraduate and graduate programs and between 5,000 and 8,500 highly educated scientists, engineers, and other professionals to enter the clean energy field by 2015; and approximately 10,000 to 17,000 professionals by 2020," according to the Department of Energy (DOE). The initiative, which would be jointly supported by DOE and the National Science Foundation, was modeled after the Breakthrough Institute's National Energy Education Act proposal and would have been the largest federal initiative to focus exclusively on clean energy education.
President Obama announced the initiative as a way to "inspire the next generation of clean energy innovators", similar to the way that the launch of Sputnik and the space race inspired young people to pursue careers in science and engineering in the 1950s and 60s. In 1958, the government passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which provided billions of dollars over 4 years to train a new generation of scientists to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields. But in recent years, the number of science and technology professionals has been declining as a share of the labor force, a development that has education experts worried.
Building on the $30b down payment made in their stimulus, South Korea plans to surge ahead in the clean energy race with a $85 billion, five year public investment in clean energy technology and innovation.
This week, South Korea has upped the ante for green public investment as it continues to make swift progress toward becoming a clean-tech economy. Already, a staggering 80% of South Korea's $38 billion stimulus package has been earmarked for green investments.
And today, the South Korean government announced that it will invest $85 billion more over 5 years to encourage the growth of green industries and technologies. That's more than doubling South Korea's recent promise to invest $40 billion over five years in a "Green New Deal," and the equivalent of 2% of the East Asian nation's total GDP. If the United States were to invest a comparable share of it's national wealth in clean energy technology, the sum would total over $275 billion annually.
President Obama's top energy aides repeated the well-worn myth that past regulation has been a major driver of energy innovation while neglecting to mention the wholly inadequate clean energy R&D investments in the ACES climate bill.
Flanked by Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Carol Browner, the administration's Energy and Climate 'Czar,' President Obama discussed his thoughts Monday on the House of Representatives' recent passage of the ACES energy and climate bill.
Secretary Chu stuck, for the most part, to his favorite talking point: comparing US energy policy to the hockey playing of Wayne Gretzsky. We need to play policy like the latter played hockey, Chu is fond of saying, by concentrating on where the puck is going to be rather than where it is at the moment.
Browner (joined at one point by Chu) continually, and almost dogmatically, asserted that prior regulation had successfully spurred rapid innovation and transformed industry. According to Browner:
"That story can be told time and time again about environmental rules, that's probably the clearest -- same thing for CFCs. The Senate decided to ban -- the bill banned CFCs, there wasn't a replacement via the guaranteed market -- the investments were made, the replacements came forward, it was cheaper, much more quickly than we thought." (via NYT)
Browner believes it was the Senate that regulated CFCs and, thereafter, industry that responded. Regulation breeds innovation and successful policy goals, Browner clearly maintains.
The truth of the matter is far subtler. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 only banned non-essential use of CFC's, and it was not until the Dupont Corporation had long acknowledged that it had developed a CFC substitute that the international Montreal Protocol banned their use entirely. The real story here was that innovation bred (or at least enabled) regulation, not the other way around.
Waxman-Markey would reduce the amount of renewable energy deployed in the United States relative to business-as-usual, increase the amount of coal-fired electricity generation relative to 2005 levels, and provide no incentive for a move to cleaner cars, according to a new analysis by the U.S. EPA
The Waxman-Markey climate bill (AKA the American Clean Energy and Security Act) would reduce the amount of renewable energy deployed in the United States relative to business-as-usual, increase the amount of coal-fired electricity generation relative to 2005 levels, and provide no incentive for a move to cleaner cars, according to a new analysis by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
We certainly can't vouch for EPA's methodology or assumptions. However, with EPA's conclusions about the likely cost of the Waxman-Markey bill on U.S. Households and the broader economy being widely cited, the surprising and even counter-intuitive projections that underlie EPA's cost estimates are worth a close look. In this post we dig passed the EPA's executive summary to take a closer look at their modeling and projections.
The climate bill is now poised for a vote on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives as soon as Friday, following a deal struck late yesterday between the bill's champion and Energy Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN). Waxman agreed to further concessions to secure the support of agricultural interests and their Congressional champions, including agreeing to strip EPA of primary oversight over the domestic carbon offsets market, giving the US Department of Agriculture jurisdiction over these programs instead, provide additional free allowances for rural electric co-operatives, and place a moratorium on new EPA rules to strengthen the environmental integrity of biofuels like corn ethanol.
Robert Atkinson argues in BusinessWeek that both neoclassical and Keynesian economics are misguided on climate policy -- innovation economics and public investments in technology should lead the way.
Robert Atkinson, one of the leading experts on technology policy and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, published an article in BusinessWeek yesterday explaining how conventional economic doctrines led to the Waxman-Markey climate bill and why innovation economics offers a better climate strategy:
While the so-called cap-and-trade mechanism (or some kind of carbon pricing) is needed, it isn't enough. To really avert climate change, the government needs to adopt an explicitly green innovation policy. Unfortunately, green innovation is getting short shrift in this bill and in Washington generally...
Both conservative and liberal neoclassicists oppose any government allocation of scarce goods and services. They prefer a market tool such as emissions trading that would set a price for carbon pollution, believing -- incorrectly -- that companies seeing potential profits would then develop needed technologies. The two camps differ slightly in how to determine a carbon price. In line with their faith in markets, most supply siders who worry about global warming favor carbon taxes, while liberal neoclassicists favor cap and trade...
Innovation economists see efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as fundamentally an innovation challenge. They are less sanguine than neoclassicists about the power of price signals alone to bring about a solution, believing that the profit motive works only when there are adequate alternatives to shift to. Without viable electric cars, for example, people will still drive gasoline-powered cars, no matter how much fuel costs, although they might switch to more fuel-efficient models.
Moreover, they believe that even if the price signal is "correct," the innovation that's needed is often delayed because of market failures such as externalities -- situations where innovators can't get the full reward from their innovations. Consequently, adherents of innovation economics say that the government must spend more on research and development to develop cost-effective noncarbon or low-carbon energy alternatives.
The Breakthrough Institute joins the Brookings Institution and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation to discuss the need for a explicit innovation policy to discuss the price gap between fossil fuels and clean energy, and what innovation policies are needed to overcome it.
As the House considers climate legislation, many have come to believe that regulations alone will result in a reduction of emissions. But energy and technology experts say a more explicit federal investment in technology is needed. Please join the Brookings Institution, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and the Breakthrough Institute to discuss the need for a explicit innovation policy to address the challenge of global climate change. At the event, policy experts will discuss the price gap between fossil fuels and clean energy, and what innovation policies are needed to overcome it.
Robert Atkinson
President, The Information and Innovation Foundation
Speakers
The Honorable Jay Inslee (D-WA), United States House of Representatives
The Honorable David Wu (D-OR), United States House of Representatives
"The Technological Barriers to Climate Mitigation"
Nate Lewis
George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry, Caltech
"Climate Policy Requires Making Clean Energy Cheap"
Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus
President, The Breakthrough Institute and Chairman, The Breakthrough Institute
"The Case for Energy Discovery Institutes"
Mark Muro
Fellow and Policy Director, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution
William B. Bonvillian
Director, Masschussettes Institute of Technology, D.C. Office
"If China is going to put in $440-660 billion [in clean energy development investments this year], how will $190 billion (actually under $130 billion) over 20 years put us in the leadership position?"
Effective climate policy must include a proactive strategy to spur clean energy technology development and deployment. The Waxman-Markey climate bill contains several smart provisions that could be key components of an effective clean technology strategy -- but only if they are adequately funded.
Several of the bill's provisions aim to do that, but we conclude that most are currently either completely unfunded or critically underfunded. Here we take a look at three smart provisions in the ACES bill that could be key components of a proactive clean energy technology strategy -- but only if they are adequately funded.
Clean Energy Deployment Administration: this provision would establish a sort of public clean energy bank charged with creating an attractive investment environment for the widespread deployment of a suite of advanced clean energy technologies. Notable for being a deployment policy explicitly dedicated to advancing technology development goals, this provision also enjoys strong bipartisan support on both the House and Senate. However, ACES provides zero funding for this critical component of a proactive clean energy technology strategy. At least $16 billion in initial seed funding should be provided for CEDA, consistent with the Senate version of this provision.
Energy Innovation Institutes: largely consistent with the recommendations of the Brookings Institution, Breakthrough Institute, Third Way and others, ACES establishes new "Clean Energy Innovation Centers" at research universities, national labs and private research facilities, creating new cross-sector and multi-disciplinary hubs for applied research and development on clean energy technologies. However, these energy innovation institutes are critically underfunded, receiving less than $1 billion/year in funding from the bill's cap and trade allowance value. To bring federal energy R&D programs to a scale sufficient to address the urgent energy innovation imperative and address the needs of a $1.5 trillion annual industry, at least $15 billion in new annual funding should be dedicated to energy R&D, with a significant portion of this new funding dedicated to establishing a robust nationwide network of energy innovation institutes.
Carbon Capture and Sequestration Demonstration and Early Deployment Program: financed by a micro-carbon fee on all electricity sold in the United States, this program would dedicate $10 billion over the next ten years to promote the commercialization and large-scale demonstration of carbon capture and sequestration technologies for coal plants and other major point-source emitters of CO2. This program is a good example of the kind of direct public investment necessary to bring down capital and technology risk barriers and accelerate clean technology commercialization. But a much better-funded and technology neutral program that would provide competitively awarded funding for the demonstration of a whole suite of first-of-their-kind clean energy technologies is needed, and would be vastly superior to this technology-specific, industry-managed program.
We delve into each of these programs in more detail after the break...
Sachs echoes Breakthrough Institute's call for a new focus on accelerated clean technology development and deployment instead of emission reduction targets.
Jeffrey Sachs, in a recent interview with TreeHugger, echoed Breakthrough Institute's call to focus on accelerating the development and deployment of clean energy technology instead of setting emission reduction targets.
As TreeHugger notes: "Sachs's big point: The debate over cap-and-trade, the clamoring for a carbon tax, and the bickering over greenhouse gas targets are distracting from serious efforts at advancing technological and policy solutions."
Sachs states:
"What I want is more plan that says quantatively how do we achieve our targets. ...
If we say 50 percent by 2020, I want people to know what is a realistic way for that to be achieved. What does it mean in terms of the auto sector, what does it mean in terms of housing, what does it mean in terms of the power sector. ...
Simply setting a target will be setting us up for disappointment. And simply believing that cap-and-trade will be sufficient to accomplish these goals I think is a mistake. When you have major technologies that need to be tested, demonstrated, when you have land use that needs to be changed, when you need to develop a new kind of power grid, those will not be solved by cap-and-trade alone."
Sachs isn't alone, the TreeHugger article notes, citing Breakthrough Institute as one of the key proponents of a public investment-led strategy to spur the development and deployment of clean energy technologies:
He's Not Alone
The idea that technological R&D, not a cap-and-trade or carbon tax system, would be the best solution to lowering greenhouse gas emissions is one that environmental contrarians Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger recently put forward in an article for Yale Environment 360.
Targets mean nothing if we can't get there, and they argue that neither a market nor tax approach to pricing carbon will help us do that. "No government in the world so far has been willing to establish and sustain a high price on carbon," the economists write.
Instead, we need to use public spending to bring down the costs of clean energy technologies, they argue, a tactic that would not only make it easier to achieve lower emissions in the U.S., for instance, but in a developing country like China, where such technologies could be manufactured and tested.
Although it may make the Wall Street Journal and Fortune magazine writers uncomfortable, the kinds of market failures that plague energy innovation, combined with a clear public imperative for transformative change, is a recipe demanding more active government engagement with innovation and industry, not less.
Marc Gunther, the excellent Fortune magazine and GreenBiz.com writer and fellow blogger at the Energy Collective, published a piece last week skeptical of the Obama Administration's new push to support the commercialization of advanced batteries in the United States and help accelerate the day when efficient plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are rolling off American assembly lines and parked in a driveway near you. At issue is $2.4 billion in new funding made available by the U.S. Department of Energy to support advanced battery commercialization and manufacturing.
Gunther quotes a Wall Street Journal article that shares his skepticism of this new funding, which will (in their words) "annoint" new technological and corporate "winners" -- something the Journal clearly sees as an unnecessary intrusion of government on free markets. Gunther agrees, writing:
"They've got a point, though, don't they? One unhappy result of all the bank bailouts of the fall is that $2.4 billion doesn't seem like much--hey, Citi alone has collected north of $45 billion, last time I checked--but a billion here, a billion there, and you're starting to talk real money. And if electric cars are going to be as big a business as a lot of people think, then why government investment should be needed at all? Particularly since we have a climate change bill making its way through Congress that will, at long last, if all goes well, put a price on carbon emissions--thereby giving low-carbon energy sources what they desperately need, which is a fighting chance to compete with fossil fuels on something resembling a level playing field. I thought the whole idea behind cap-and-trade (which I strongly favor) is to capture the externalized cost of global warming pollutants, and then let the market figure out how best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: regulation that would have a light touch but a profound impact.
But no--with Waxman-Markey, CAFE standards, biofuels mandates, subsidies for "green jobs" and the like--the administration is giving us a belt and a couple of pairs of suspenders, too. Much as I admire Steven Chu, the energy secretary, do we really want to entrust him and his staff to decide which battery technologies are likely to succeed and which companies can most wisely spend that $2.4 billion?"
And as much as I respect Marc Gunther, I quickly took issue with this pretty classic set of objections to government involvement in technological development. I wrote this response, which Gunther dubbed "Defending Big Government," and was happy to post at his personal blog and at GreenBiz. It has now been syndicated at The Energy Collective and at Reuters as well. Here it is for Breakthrough readers:
The technologies of the Industrial Revolution were invented in Britain because Britain was the only place where it was profitable to adopt them, argues Oxford scholar Robert Allen.
Robert Allen, an Oxford professor, has a new book out with Cambridge University Press titled "The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective." Allen has a precis up over at VoxEU which provokes a few thoughts about efforts to spark a new green global economy.
Allen argues that a combination of factors led to the industrial
revolution, among them international trade associated with the British
Empire, an educated and wealthy populace which created a demand for the
fruits of technology as well as the skills necessary to produce them,
and, crucially, cheap energy. Allen provides the following graph,
showing a comparison of energy costs across Europe in the early 1700s.
Compared to President Obama's promises and the recommendations of a variety of energy experts alike, the ACES climate and clean energy bill's investments in clean energy are an order of magnitude too small.
[Updated 5/22/09: the ACES bill now includes a $10/ton price floor for auctioned pollution permits. The analysis below has been updated to reflect that change in the legislation]
Today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee began markup of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). The bill promises to cap and reduce carbon pollution, create clean energy jobs, and spur technology innovation. Unfortunately, as our analysis of the use of carbon pollution allowances in the ACES bill revealed, the bill is on course to invest very little of the hundreds of billions of dollars in value created by the bill's cap-and-trade program over the coming years towards those objectives.
Most of the allowance value (74 percent) created by the ACES cap and trade program is dedicated to blunting the impact of the carbon price established by the program on industries and consumers (and securing the critical swing votes on the committee representing these entrenched energy and industry interests). In contrast, just 12 percent of the allowance value is dedicated to clean energy investments, broadly defined.
At an average allowance price of $10 to $20 dollars per ton of CO2 between 2012-2025, that would amount to clean energy investments of just $6-12 billion per year, and just $490-980 million for clean energy R&D (see our full analysis of the allowance allocations in ACES for more).
President Obama has repeatedly promised to, "Invest $150 billion over ten years in energy research and development to transition to a clean energy economy" (from WhiteHouse.gov). The President's 2010 Budget Outline specifically dedicated $15 billion per year in new revenue generated by a cap and trade program to this purpose. Yet the bill before us, depending on the allowance value it establishes, would invest just one-fifteenth to one-thirtieth of the $15 billion President Obama has pledged -- and specifically requested from Congress. Furthermore, this new energy R&D spending may amount to just a ten percent increase in current federal energy R&D budgets.
Likewise, the total investments in a new clean energy economy, more broadly defined, are an order of magnitude smaller than proposals advanced by the Breakthrough Institute, Apollo Alliance and others have deemed necessary to drive clean energy innovation, create millions of new energy jobs, and jump-start a prosperous, clean energy economy.
Below the fold, you can see how the clean energy investments made by the ACES bill compare with what a range of proposals and current R&D funding levels...
Two graphics illustrate why pollution regulation like the cap and trade program that reduced acid rain-forming SO2 emissions at coal plants is not a real parallel for the global climate challenge.
One of the most often-repeated assumptions in the climate policy debate is that cap and trade, the preferred mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, worked for SO2 and acid rain, so it will work for GHGs. Sounds good. Until you take a second to think about the comparison.
Dealing with GHGs is a challenge of an order of magnitude greater scale and complexity. To see why, see the two graphics below:
First, here's a graphical representation of the Acid Rain cap and trade challenge:
Below the fold, you'll see a graphic representation of the global flow of greenhouse gas emissions, the challenge we have to deal with to avert potentially catastrophic climate change...
Australia shelves Cap and Trade until 2011. ABC's Peter Mares asks David Spratt of Climate Code Red and Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute for their take on the need for a government supported clean energy push.
Stream it directly from the ABC News Australia site, or download the mp3 here(particularly if you're a Mac/Linux user).
From Peter Mares at ABC Australia National Radio:
"This week, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced changes to the Australian federal government's planned emissions trading scheme, postponing the start date, increasing the compensation for big polluters and promising deeper cuts to Australia's greenhouse gases (with the proviso that the rest of the world does the right thing). The result is a scheme that's both greener and browner - if such a thing were possible. But as we examine the pros and the cons of the decision, some argue it's all pointless anyway. Climate change sceptics dispute the need for any reductions at all; then there's the critique from sections of the environmental movement that an emissions trading scheme is like rearranging deckchairs on the Titantic: far too little, far too late. On the program today, we're going to hear the case for state intervention - the idea of a Marshall Plan for alternative energy in which public money is used to solve the global warming problem."
New details on President Obama's RE-ENERGYSE energy education initiative, which mirrors closely Breakthrough's National Energy Education Act proposal. Is the new program large enough to truly prepare a new generation to tackle the greatest innovation challenge this nation has ever faced?
President Obama and the Department of Energy are launching a new energy education initiative, very similar to the National Energy Education Act recommendations advanced by the Breakthrough Institute beginning in June 2008 (see recent post here). Today, the Department of Energy released official FY 2010 budget documents that start to flesh out what this new program will look like. It appears the program will receive $115 million in funding, if the President's budget request is implemented.
Here's the description of the program from the new 'Budget Highlights' document available here (pdf):
RE-ENERGYSE (REgaining our ENERGY Science and Engineering Edge)
The Department will launch a comprehensive K-20+ science and engineering initiative, funded at $115 million in FY 2010, to educate thousands of students at all levels in the fields contributing to the fundamental understanding of energy science and engineering systems. This initiative, which complements the Department's other education efforts, will provide graduate research fellowships in scientific and technical fields that advance the Department's energy mission; provide training grants to universities that establish multidisciplinary research and education programs related to clean energy; support universities that dramatically expand energy-related research opportunities for undergraduates; build partnerships between community colleges and different segments of the clean tech industry to develop customized curriculum for "green collar" jobs; and increase public awareness, particularly among young people, about the role that science and technology can play in responsible environmental stewardship.
Bjorn Lomborg wants to make clean energy cheap. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to understand that making clean energy cheap is about far more than R&D.
Bjorn Lomborg wants to make clean energy cheap. Unfortunately, the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It doesn't seem to understand that making clean energy cheap is about much more than R&D.
"I love this thought--it comes from the Breakthrough Institute. Basically, the idea is that everyone seems to be trying to make fossil fuels so expensive that we won't use them. But that's never going to happen. So why don't we try to make green energy so cheap that everyone will want to use it?"
He then argues, "We should spend vastly more on research and development."
Lomborg get's that part right. As we've long argued, today's paltry investments in clean energy R&D -- from both public and private sectors alike -- is woefully inadequate to the energy innovation imperative we face today. With a broad expert consensus making the case and politicians from President Obama to Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) calling for more public investment in clean energy R&D, we seem to be approaching the political 'critical mass' necessary for real change on that front.
But for Lomborg, clean energy R&D is something you do instead of deploying clean energy technology available today, and that's where we part ways with "the Skeptical Environmentalist."
What Lomborg apparently doesn't understand is that efforts to truly "make green energy so cheap that everyone will want to use it" will necessarily involve major direct public investments to spur the rapid deployment of emerging clean energy technologies. Far from something that just occurs in the lab, the innovation process extends well beyond R&D.
The United States will restore its standing as the most innovative nation in the world, President Obama declared at a major speech on science, innovation, and education policy. He pledged an order of magnitude increase in federal energy R&D spending and promised to support a new generation of young scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs as they help overcome pressing innovation challenges, secure the nation's prosperity and restore our economic competitiveness.
The United States will restore its standing as the most innovative nation in the world, President Obama declared at a major speech on science, innovation, and education policy delivered today at the National Academies of Science in Washington D.C.
The President pledged to implement policies that will dramatically ramp up the United States' overall spending (both public and private) on innovation and R&D, bringing it up to three percent of the nation's total economic output (GDP). President Obama also declared that it was his goal to see the nation once again have the highest percentage of college graduates in the world by 2020.
The stimulus bill's $21.5 billion investment in science and technology was the largest investment in R&D in the nation's history, Obama said. He promised that his administration would build on these investments by continuing to expand budgets for key agencies funding science and research (DOE, NSF, NIST), making permanent the federal R&D tax credit to encourage private-sector investment in innovation, and launching a major increase in funding to support the transformative innovation necessary to overcome the nation's energy and climate challenges.
The President's speech was also laden with references to the critical role innovation plays in securing the nation's prosperity and economic competitiveness and said he was committed to expanding science and innovation funding, in spite of (and even because of) the current economic crisis:
"At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science. That support for research is somehow a luxury at a moment defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree. Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been. And if there was ever a day that reminded us of our shared stake in science and research, it's today.
If we want to pass policies that will truly catapult the United States into a clean and prosperous energy economy, slash global warming pollution, and make clean energy cheap and abundant, we need to pass the "Sherrod Brown Test."
For advocates of immediate and strong climate and clean energy legislation, there's one man we should all be paying close attention to: Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
Senator Brown has spoken eloquently on multiple occasions about the power of clean energy technologies to revitalize the hard-hit industrial communities of Ohio and other Heartland states. Just this week, the Ohio Senator penned an op ed in the Capitol Hill paper Roll Call declaring that the time is now to enact strong climate policy:
"If we care about the world in which we live and the generations that will follow us, then we must no longer dismiss the lethal risks global warming poses to our planet. We must craft an aggressive strategy to combat global warming, and we must do it now. ... Inaction is not an option."
Senator Brown is still on the fence, and as the old saying goes, 'the devil is truly in the details:' if the details of climate and clean energy legislation make it something Senator Brown can support and even champion, then there's a decent shot of seeing the remaining swing Senators jump on board, putting 60 votes within reach. On the other hand, if Senator Brown can't support the proposal because he's not convinced it's in the best interests of Ohio or the nation, then kiss hopes of climate action this year good bye.
It's simple: if we want to pass policies that will truly catapult the United States into a clean and prosperous energy economy, slash global warming pollution, and make clean energy cheap and abundant, we need to pass the "Sherrod Brown Test."
We have a post up at Salon today that criticizes cap and trade legislation in the House (Waxman-Markey). We argue that it cannot achieve the clean energy revolution we need. Compromises will no doubt be necessary to pass climate legislation in Congress, but as currently drafted, Waxman-Markey looks like it will make all the wrong compromises, allowing firms to buy dubious and sometimes phony carbon offsets rather than invest in clean energy, giving away billions of pollution allocations to incumbent energy interests for free, and committing a fraction of the funds needed for direct public investments in clean energy research, development, and deployment.
We propose an alternative cap and trade, which would explicitly cap the price of carbon dioxide pollution at roughly $10 per ton, rising over time, would auction all pollution allowances with no free giveaways and no offsetting, and would use the vast majority of the revenues, about $60 billion a year, to fund the accelerated development and deployment of clean energy technologies. We believe that such a solution would more rapidly achieve the technological innovations we need at a lower cost. It is also great politics, given strong public support for government investment in clean energy technology. This is the same position we have held since 2007, when we laid out this basic approach in Break Through and other writings.
Jesse, what exactly is investing public money in deployment of wind farms and PV arrays supposed to accomplish if you do it [along] with a carbon cap/trade? Its one thing to address market failures like a lack of research and transmission, but deploying extra carbon-reduction measures in sectors covered by the cap will not compel emissions reductions beyond what the cap mandates. What am I missing?
Below the fold, you'll find my reply, which articulates three reasons why clean energy investments are critical to climate objectives. We'll leave the part about how investing in a clean and prosperous energy economy is also a politically powerful proposition that strengthens the political appeal of climate policy for another day (check here if you're interested (pdf)).
Congressman Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee says, "by and large," the revenues from climate and clean energy legislation should be reinvested in clean energy technologies; openly critiques President Obama's plan to return 80% of carbon revenues to taxpayers.
Congressman Henry Waxman says, "by and large," the revenues from climate and clean energy legislation should be reinvested in clean energy technologies, Bloomberg News reported Friday.
The statement is a marked improvement over Congressman Waxman's appearance on PBS' Tavis Smiley show last Monday, when he seemed to indicate that the primary driver of clean energy technology innovation and deployment would be the higher prices on dirty fuels set by proposed cap and trade legislation and made little mention of the critical role public investments in clean energy can and must play in accelerating the birth of a clean, prosperous energy economy.
Like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's prior statements that cap and trade is designed to "pay for some of these investments in energy independence and renewables," Waxman's latest remarks could indicate a growing consensus among House leadership that carbon revenues should be primarily used to spur clean energy technologies and accelerate the transition to a clean, new energy economy.
Congressman Waxman, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee set to draft climate and clean energy legislation over the coming weeks, was also openly critical of President Obama's proposal to send the bulk of revenues raised from a proposed cap and trade system back to taxpayers in the form of middle class tax cuts. Bloomberg quotes the Congressman as saying:
"I don't think that's the best use of it [carbon revenues]," Waxman said. "By and large" it should be spent on green technologies, he said, and part of it could be used to "help consumers with higher energy costs" and hard-hit industries, "especially coal."
The draft climate and clean energy bill circulated three weeks ago by Congressman Waxman and Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) (who chairs the subcommittee taking the first crack at the bill beginning this week) made little commitment to the public investments necessary to spur clean energy innovation and accelerate the deployment of clean energy technologies. Waxman's statements last week indicate that commitment may be coming soon, as Markey and Waxman begin the real work of drawing up the climate and energy legislation they hope to send to the House floor by Memorial Day.
In a new draft report, the advisory board to the National Science Foundation calls on the government to "develop and lead a nationally coordinated research, development demonstration, deployment, and education (RD3E) strategy to advance a sustainable energy economy."
Much as the Breakthrough Institute has long advocated, the National Science Board calls for a major increase in federal funding to "[s]upport a range of sustainable energy alternatives, their enabling infrastructure, and their effective demonstration and deployment." The report calls for a ramp-up in clean energy "RD3E" activities - research, development, demonstration and deployment as well as education.
While it does not include a specific funding level recommendation, the National Science Board calls on the federal government to "support a national sustainable energy R&D program at a greatly increased and appropriate scale to meet sustainable energy technological and deployment challenges necessary to reduce energy intensity and carbon intensity in a timely manner."
Almost nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe political efforts to restrict global warming to 2C will succeed, a Guardian poll reveals today. Time to get serious about adaptation, geoengineering, air capture and transformational innovation.
Almost nine out of 10 climate scientists do not believe political efforts to restrict global warming to 2C will succeed, a Guardian poll reveals today. An average rise of 4-5C by the end of this century is more likely, they say, given soaring carbon emissions and political constraints.
Such a change would disrupt food and water supplies, exterminate thousands of species of plants and animals and trigger massive sea level rises that would swamp the homes of hundreds of millions of people.
The poll of those who follow global warming most closely exposes a widening gulf between political rhetoric and scientific opinions on climate change. While policymakers and campaigners focus on the 2C target, 86% of the experts told the survey they did not think it would be achieved. A continued focus on an unrealistic 2C rise, which the EU defines as dangerous, could even undermine essential efforts to adapt to inevitable higher temperature rises in the coming decades, they warned.
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu says "another myth is that we have all the technology we need to solve the energy problem, it's only a matter of political will."
"So, another myth is that we have all the technology we need to solve the energy problem, it's only a matter of political will. I think political will is absolutely necessary ... but we need new technologies to transform the [energy] landscape."
-Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, speaking (before his nomination) in summer 2008 at the National Clean Energy Summit convened by the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), and the Center for American Progress Action Fund (see video below).
Quote starts at 6 minute and 22 seconds into the video. Chu then goes on the speak about the potential for dramatic and transformational technological developments - aka "breakthroughs" - in energy technologies, including solar photovoltaics and biofuels.
ClimateProgress blogger Joseph Romm flat out ignores (some might say, denies) a wide body of expert consensus on energy innovation, including the positions of Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.
Is it just me, or is ClimateProgress blogger Joseph Romm working hard to marginalize himself as he reinforces an increasingly nonsensical position on energy innovation?
Yet again, Romm has recycled his assertions that no new technological development (beyond very minor improvements to existing technologies) is necessary to tackle the massive global energy and climate challenge. He repeats his efforts to label those who call attention to the scale and urgency of our energy innovation challenge and advocate major investments in energy technology as "climate delayer-equivalents." And Romm does so at the exact same time as he plainly ignores -- one might say, denies -- the wide body of evidence and expert consensus that dramatic innovation to spur both incremental and transformative developments in a whole suite of clean energy technologies is critical if we hope to overcome the climate and energy challenge and preserve a prosperous global society.
Perhaps the most striking indication of how at odds Joe Romm's "breakthrough's are totally irrelevant" position is with expert consensus is this: it directly contradicts the public statements of Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (who Romm lavished praise on when he was selected by Obama).
Japan and Germany, two somewhat unlikely nations, are now world leaders in solar energy installations and are home to booming domestic solar industries. The secret of their success: sustained public investments in both the development and deployment of solar energy technology. Each nation took a distinct path, and lessons can be learned form both.
A solar array installed along a highway near Freiburg, Germany. Japan and Germany, two somewhat unlikely nations, are now world leaders in solar energy installations and are home to booming domestic solar industries. The secret of their success: sustained public investments in both the development and deployment of solar energy technology. Each nation took a distinct path, and lessons can be learned from both.
Two distinct paths led two very different nations--Germany and Japan--to become global leaders in the production and installation of solar photovoltaic technology. Motivated variously by concerns over security, health, climate change and high energy prices, these nations are now home to robust and growing solar industries and solar panels can be found on hundreds of thousands of rooftops across these nations. However, differences in the public policies employed by each nation led to different results: Germany's solar industry is still dependent on subsidized power production costs, while Japan's investments to drive down the costs of solar energy have successfully created a domestic industry that has been independent of federal subsidies since 2005.
Since 1979, the Danish government, through intelligent, sustained public investment, has mobilized the nation in the development of next-generation wind energy. Today, a third of all wind turbines produced in the world are made by Danish firms, and wind power provides twenty percent of the nation's electricity.
Wind turbines, like those deployed across Denmark. Since 1979, the Danish government, through intelligent, sustained public investment, has mobilized the nation in the development of next-generation wind energy. Today, a third of all wind turbines produced in the world are made by Danish firms, and wind power provides twenty percent of the nation's electricity.
At the mouth of Copenhagen harbor, twenty giant wind turbines, arranged in a graceful arc, turn in the coastal breeze. This is Middelgrunden, Denmark's first cooperative wind farm and a symbol of that tiny country's impressive wind energy industry. Middelgrunden's turbines, installed in the late 1990s, were designed by Danish engineers, built and installed by Danish technicians, and generate enough electricity to power 40,000 Danish homes. Perhaps most impressively, the project is owned by over 8,500 cooperative members who share the profits of clean energy generation.
Middelgrunden is a result of Denmark's long and successful collaboration between private industry, individual citizens and, most importantly, strong government support. Since 1979, the Danish government, through intelligent, sustained investment, has mobilized the nation in the development of next-generation wind energy, and the results have been impressive. Today, Danish firms account for one third of the global wind power market and have driven the creation of a booming multi-billion dollar industry. In Denmark alone, 6,300 wind turbines pump energy into the regional grid today, providing roughly twenty percent of the nation's electricity. Wind power accounts for some 25,000 Danish jobs, and in 2007, the industry exported 4.7 billion euros worth of energy technology. Without a doubt, government involvement in the wind sector enabled this Danish success story.
The story of the PC is usually a romantic tribute to the unrestrained genius of lone inventors tinkering in garage workshops. Yet history shows that the active support of the federal government, particularly the U.S. military and space programs, was critical to the rise of Silicon Valley. Indeed, today's personal computer embodies a decades-long collaboration between private innovators and an active government.
An antique Apple II, one of the first commercial personal computers. The story of the PC is usually a romantic tribute to the unrestrained genius of lone inventors tinkering in garage workshops. Yet history shows that the active support of the federal government, particularly the U.S. military and space programs, was critical to the rise of Silicon Valley. Indeed, today's personal computer embodies a decades-long collaboration between private innovators and an active government.
The legend of the personal computer (PC), as it's normally told, emphasizes individual brilliance and initiative. The origins of today's industry titans like Microsoft and Apple are surrounded by romantic images of college dropouts tinkering away in garage workshops. This story is one of independence, of genius allowed to run free and inventions flourishing in the open market. Of course, the government is conspicuously absent here; as Bill Gates has said, "the amazing thing is that all this happened without any government involvement."
The PC legend may be compelling, but like all legends, it has more to do with fiction than fact. While the role of individual innovators can hardly be understated, the active involvement of the federal government - especially the military - was critical to the rise of Silicon Valley. Indeed, today's personal computer embodies a decades-long collaboration between private innovators and an active government.
The purchasing power of the federal government made the microchip an affordable and ubiquitous technology. Government procurement drove the price of microchips down by a factor of fifty in just a matter of years. Consider this: without these public investments in the semiconductor revolution, your iPod would cost $10,000 and be the size of a room!
A modern microprocessor. The purchasing power of the federal government made the microchip an affordable and ubiquitous technology. Government procurement drove the price of microchips down by a factor of fifty in just a matter of years. Consider this: without these public investments in the semiconductor revolution, your iPod would cost $10,000 and be the size of a room!
In 1958, a truly groundbreaking idea was finally realized in the laboratories of Texas Instruments (TI). For years prior, engineers had struggled to design circuits that could drive the increasingly sophisticated electronics of the time. Complex electronic processes required circuits involving many transistors, which had to be painstakingly soldered together, and the connections were unreliable and difficult to produce.
Jack Kilby, a TI engineer, realized that this connection problem - known to the electronics industry as the "tyranny of numbers" - could be solved by making all the transistors in a circuit, as well as their connections, out of a single piece of material. In the late summer of 1958, Kilby carved a complex circuit out of a single piece of germanium metal, and the "integrated circuit" - also known as the microchip - was born.
Other engineers, most notably Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor, quickly improved on Kilby's design, turning a prototype into a promising new innovation. But the future of the microchip was by no means certain. It took the buying power of the U.S. government to make the microchip into a mass-produced, affordable and ubiquitous piece of technology.
Powered human flight was invented in the United States, but by the First World War, America lagged behind in the emerging field of aviation. By mid-century, government support, ranging from R&D programs to deployment contracts, had restored U.S. expertise in aeronautics and laid the foundations for the modern aviation industry
The Wright Flyer on display in the National Air and Space Museum. Powered human flight was invented in the United States, but by the First World War, America lagged behind in the emerging field of aviation. By mid-century, government support, ranging from R&D programs to deployment contracts, had restored U.S. expertise in aeronautics and laid the foundations for the modern aviation industry.
American names like Samuel Langley and the Wright brothers loom large in the history of early flight. But just a few years after Kitty Hawk, America was already lagging behind other nations in the mastery of aviation. European governments poured resources into aeronautics over the early 20th century, compelled by the military needs of the First World War. In 1913, America ranked 14th in government spending on aircraft development, languishing in the company of Brazil and Denmark. Even as Britain, France and Germany made leaps and bounds in aviation design, Langley's "Aerodrome" lay dusty and abandoned in a Smithsonian lab.
By mid-century, however, the U.S. was well on its way to restoring its place at the forefront of civil and military aviation. U.S. factories were churning out better planes, ever faster and cheaper, and American researchers were pioneering radical improvements in aircraft design. Government involvement, from research support to deployment initiatives, was the critical catalyst for this remarkable turnaround, laying the foundations for America's modern aviation industry.
The single greatest solution to the world's interlinking energy, economic and climate crises is to once again harness America's forces of innovation to make clean energy technology both cheap and abundant. To harness this solution we must take a new look at the process of innovation and determine the best mechanisms to catalyze and accelerate technology development.
"It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to a low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply."
Technology is a cornerstone of American prosperity, the primary source of our economic competitiveness, and a constant presence in our everyday lives. From the 19th century's advances in manufacturing and transportation to today's cutting-edge developments in biotechnology and computer science, Americans have been world leaders in creating, producing, and deploying innovative technology. Nobel Laureate Robert Solow's classic 1956 economic model of productivity growth demonstrated that technological progress drove at least 80% of economic growth in the United States between 1909 to 19491, and innovation continues to be perhaps the most powerful engine of our prosperity.
Today, America and the world are in energy crisis. Energy prices are escalating, foreign energy dependency is increasing, global warming continues unabated, and all across the world there are billions of people who continue to live without access to energy. The single greatest solution to these crises is to once again harness America's forces of innovation to make clean energy technology both cheap and abundant.
But to harness this solution we must take a new look at the process of innovation and determine the best mechanisms to catalyze and accelerate technology development. This requires looking beyond both the mythos of the lone American inventor and the market fundamentalist ideology that has dominated American politics in recent decades. Instead, we must look closely at several key American technologies and unearth the historic and seemingly ubiquitous government investments that fueled their development.
In a 2009 report, the Breakthrough Institute illuminates the stories behind the invention and diffusion of ten technologies that are everyday facets of our modern lives and offers a new look at government involvement in technological development.
In a report released in 2009, the Breakthrough Institute illuminates the stories behind the invention and diffusion of ten technologies that are everyday facets of our modern lives and offers a new look at government involvement in technological development.
The conventional wisdom on climate change -- from Thomas Friedman to the country's largest environmental organizations -- is that cap and trade regulation and carbon pricing is the best way to promote clean energy innovation. However, a growing number of experts, including Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria, are challenging this assumption, recognizing the importance of direct, large-scale public investment to achieve developments in clean energy technology. The outcome of this debate and the correct emphasis on public investment and regulation may determine the course of U.S. and global climate policy.
Case Studies in American Innovation presents ten case studies showing that public investment and active government support has been one of the greatest forces behind the nation's technology development and economic growth. Indeed, public investment in the U.S. was largely responsible for railroads, airplanes, microchips, personal computers, and the birth of the Internet -- all of which drove long-term economic development. This evidence not only challenges conventional wisdom on climate policy, but also on national economic policy, which has been dominated for three decades by neoclassical economists.
"Technology policy lies at the core of the climate change challenge. Even with a cutback in wasteful energy spending, our current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy. If we try to restrain emissions without a fundamentally new set of technologies, we will end up stifling economic growth, including the development prospects for billions of people.
Economists often talk as though putting a price on carbon emissions--through tradable permits or a carbon tax--will be enough to deliver the needed reductions in those emissions. This is not true. Europe's carbon-trading system has not shown much capacity to generate large-scale research nor to develop, demonstrate and deploy breakthrough technologies. A trading system might marginally influence the choices between coal and gas plants or provoke a bit more adoption of solar and wind power, but it will not lead to the necessary fundamental overhaul of energy systems.
For that, we will need much more than a price on carbon. ...
Economists like to set corrective prices and then be done with it, leaving the rest of household and business decisions to the magic of the market. This hands-off approach will not work in the case of a major overhaul of energy technology. We will need large-scale public funding of research, development and demonstration projects; intellectual property policies to promote rapid dissemination to poor countries; and the promotion of public debate and acceptance of new options. We will need to back winners, at least provisionally, to get new systems moving. "
An oldie but a goody from well-known economist and direct of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Jeffrey Sachs, April 2008 in Scientific American, "Keys to Climate Protection."
A new report from McKinsey & Co. warns a second major oil shock looms just over the horizon, ready to hit the global economy hard as soon as it begins to recover. McKinsey's analysts conclude that freeing our nation from oil price volatility will require "aggressive" investments in energy technology innovation, and there's no time to waste
McKinsey's analysts look at a variety of economic scenarios and warn that the global oil supply-demand balance will tighten as soon as the global economy begins to recover, as soon as 2010-2013 (depending on degree of global downturn). At that point, the global supply-demand situation will closely resemble the situation found in 2007 and the first half of 2008, when prices soared to over $140 a barrel, hitting pocketbooks and the global economy hard.
McKinsey predicts that a second oil price shock could cost the global economy $1.5 trillion or more, hitting us hard just as we're trying to stand back up again.
A major new climate bill hit the House of Representatives this week and was met with deft political maneuverings from Senate Republicans that could render cap and trade dead on arrival. The Breakthrough Institute team has the angles covered:
Jesse Jenkins says this new climate bill is proof of misplaced priorities as the leading green groups setting the climate agenda walk away from billions of dollars in critical clean energy investments in favor of regulations, standards and carbon pricing. See also "Climate Bill is All About the Coal Hard Cash" at Huffington Post and listen to Jenkins talk about the Markey-Waxmen bill on KPFA radio.
Meanwhile in the Senate, two Republican amendments may leave cap and trade with no where to go. In reaction to the House climate bill, the Senate this week voted 89-8 to preemptively reject any cap and trade bill that increases consumer energy prices and voted 98-0 to ensure that any climate bill protects middle-income taxpayers from any tax increases.
Michael Shellenberger sees these votes as the clearest rejection yet of the pollution pricing paradigm and examines the artful political maneuverings at play.
Ted Nordhaus is left worrying that the climate bill is on a crash course for compromise that will leave us stuck with the worst of both worlds: a climate policy lacking both a price signal sufficient to drive private investment anywhere near the scale we need and NO money for public investments in an RD&D strategy sufficient to make clean energy cheap.
Teryn Norris and Jesse Jenkins outline what Democrats can do to regain the political high ground and win the climate debate in this op ed, featured at Huffington Post. If Democrats want to win, they should quickly follow President Obama's lead by shifting the focus of climate legislation from pollution regulation to bold government investment in the clean energy economy.
We are nowwitnessing the inevitable entailment of putting pollution caps and climate at the center of the political proposition.
Everyone is all for capping carbon until it comes time to pay for it. Then it is a consumption tax and few politicians and voters are prepared to support it. It inevitably leads to a debate centered on the costs and regulations, not the social benefits of the policy.
The Apollo approach, which puts the immediate social and economic benefits - a clean energy economy, energy independence, new industries that can create good jobs - at the center of the debate and uses modest carbon price revenues to pay for it has always been vastly more robust to the kinds of political attacks that we are seeing this week. The debate becomes about whether or not we are going to make these investments in America's future - not whether or not we are willing to take our medicine in order to avoid the end of the world. But making this move requires more than simply swapping out the picture of the polar bear on the front page of your newsletter for a picture of a construction worker. It requires taking the investment agenda seriously and making it the central objective of policy.
The choice that greens and sympathetic policy makers will have in the coming months will be whether to move to this kind of plan B or accept a cap and trade bill that is likely to provide neither a very significant price signal nor any serious money for RD&D.
As I mentioned yesterday, some stark political lines are being drawn in the Senate on cap and trade legislation. The Thune Amendment had 89 members of the Senate going on record opposing any increases to electricity or gasoline prices as a result of cap and trade legislation. In the Senate yesterday another important amendment to the Budget Resolution was approved unanimously, 98-0, sponsored by Senator Ensign (R-NV), chair of the Republican Policy Committee. Here is its text:
To protect middle-income taxpayers from tax increases by providing a point of order against legislation that increase taxes on them, including taxes that arise, directly or indirectly, from Federal revenues derived from climate change or similar legislation.
What does this amendment mean?
It means that money raised from cap and trade (or even a carbon tax) cannot lead to a net increase in the overall tax burden on the "middle class." What is "middle class"? According to Senator Ensign in a press release trumpeting the amendment, it includes those households earning less than $250,000 per year. Senator Ensign cites the President on this point, referring back to his campaign promises not to raise taxes on this group.
Politically and practically, this amendment could then mean that proponents of cap and trade will need to pursue an explicit "cap and dividend" approach with any such policy being tax neutral for those earning less than $250,000 per year. In other words, the costs of cap and trade will have to be fully borne by those earning above $250,000 per year. Some of the challenges of the distributional effects of cap and trade are discussed in recent CBO testimony (PDF). Whether or not legislation can be written that allows supporters to claim to have met the spirit of the Ensign Amendment, it is clear that the Amendment makes the political challenge that much more difficult.
The ability of Congressional legislation on cap and trade to result in actual emissions reductions was dealt a serious blow yesterday. An Amendment was introduced by Senator John Thune (R-SD) on the Budget Resolution and its text is as follows:
To amend the deficit-neutral reserve fund for climate change legislation to require that such legislation does not increase electricity or gasoline prices.
What is this? Climate change legislation cannot increase electricity or gasoline prices? The entire purpose of cap and trade is in fact to increase the costs of carbon-emitting sources of energy, which dominate US energy consumption. The Thune Amendment thus undercuts the entire purpose of cap and trade.
The draft Markey-Waxman climate bill is proof that the green groups leading the climate charge won't fight for investments in clean energy technologies and a new energy economy. Instead, they'll throw these critical investments overboard to preserve precious regulations and an increasingly compromised "cap" on carbon.
As Beltway insiders have repeatedly "reminded" me, this is "just
a discussion draft," and its final form may be much different. But just
looking at what's in this bill so far -- and just as important, what's not -- paints a clear picture of misplaced priorities and a bill in critical need of some "course correction."
Even a cursory read of this "American Clean Energy and Security Act" (ACES) -- and I've read far more of this 648 page bill than I'd like! -- speaks volumes to the priorities of the various parties driving this debate so far - namely the greengroups and big industry players already cutting deals as part of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. This bill should be proof, once and for all, these leading greens will throw clean energy investments overboard to preserve precious regulations and an increasingly compromised "cap" on carbon.
Economist James K Galbraith takes a close look at the economic and financial crises of today and yesteryear and confirms that when it comes to economic recovery, nothing short of an all out effort will get the job done. Check out his recommendations below...
Galbraith echoes and reinforces many of the criticisms and recommendations Breakthrough has been offering on the economy for the past six months: more public spending (a lot!); nationalize the banks so they can be cleaned up and re-privatized;
and ultimately, spark a new engine of economic growth in the birth of a
new clean energy economy.
Galbraith isn't shy either about criticizing President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner for stimulus. It's not bold enough,
it reflects the middle of the road economic consensus (and is therefore too timid), and it reflects a misguided attempt at
bipartisanship. Here's the choice quote there:
Second, the new team also sought consensus of another type. Christina
Romer polled a bipartisan group of professional economists, and Larry
Summers told Meet the Press that the final package reflected a
"balance" of their views. This procedure guarantees a result near the
middle of the professional mind-set. The method would be useful if the
errors of economists were unsystematic. But they are not. Economists
are a cautious group, and in any extreme situation the midpoint of
professional opinion is bound to be wrong.
In its most recent print edition, the Economist looks at what the stimulus and new increased funding at the DOE are doing to revitalize the agency and America's energy innovation capacity as a whole.
Americans desperate for cleaner, cheaper energy are looking more than ever to science and the breakthrough technologies that will be necessary to bring down the price of clean and renewable energy to a parity with existing, dirty technologies. And, while the desire has long been in place for something to supplant the old order of carbon technologies, the actual motor of change -- that is, the money -- has been in short supply.
Since the early 1980's, this desire manifest itself in rhetoric and little else. Now change has started to come to Washington, and now that we have in place a president who clearly understands the investment centered approach, the pragmatic question to ask is not if, but how soon? With Obama's guarantee of unprecedented investments in clean energy technology development will also come the onus on the scientific community -- particularly the innovators supported by the U.S. Department of Energy which will receive the bulk of these new investments -- to deliver real, commercially applicable solutions; and while the appropriation of funds signals a windfall of support that had previously only existed in nebulous rhetoric, the actual breakthrough technologies we are so desperately hedging the future of our economy (and also the greater world) on are still only glimmers in the mind's eye of a few brave and bold scientists.
In it's most recent edition, the Economist looks at what those familiar with the DOE are saying about this huge windfall of capital. The consensus seems to be: now is the time to stand up and deliver.
Breakthrough's director of energy and climate policy, Jesse Jenkins, speaks about climate policy and politics on a half hour radio segment that aired March 27th on KPFA radio in the Bay Area. Jenkins joins Clear Air Watch's Frank O'Donnell to discuss the hard realities of climate politics and outline a policy strategy to make clean energy cheap that can overcome these realities.
Listen to the archived segment as streaming audio here (only available through April 10, 2009):
Obama continues to hone his post-environmental case for an investment and innovation-focused clean energy agenda. Speaking today at the White House, the President again pledged major investments to spur the development of clean energy technologies, a call echoed by Energy Secretary Steven Chu at a separate event today at a national laboratory in New York.
Both speaking to the public today at separate events, President Barack Obama and Energy Secretary Stephen Chu highlighted the administration's plans to make unprecedented investments in clean energy innovation.
Obama also promised a ten-year commitment to make the federal Research and Experimentation Tax Credit permanent in order to encourage greater private sector investment in the kind of innovation that truly drives long-term economic growth.
Investments in clean energy innovation offer the nation's "best strategy" for economic recovery and "the only route to the breakthrough technologies we need" to tackle the nation's pressing energy and climate challenge, says MIT President Susan Hockfield today, speaking at the White House
Investments in clean energy innovation offer the nation's "best strategy" for economic recovery and "the only route to the breakthrough technologies we need" to tackle the nation's pressing energy and climate challenge, said MIT President Susan Hockfield today at a speech delivered at the White House.
Hockfield, an outspokenchampion of clean energy innovation, spoke at the invitation of President Obama, who followed Hockfield's remarks with a speech outlining his plans to make unprecedented investments in clean energy technology and innovation.
"[S]ince World War II, by far the largest and most important source of US economic growth has been technological innovation, much of it springing from federally funded ... research," Hockfield said, echoing much of the work we've done at the Breakthrough Institute to advance public investments in clean energy innovation.
Facing both economic recession and pressing energy and climate challenges, clean energy innovation is critical, Hockfield argued:
"The R&D and technology investments that President Obama proposes have equally profound potential as an economic catalyst. That would be good news in any economy. But today, it provides a lifeline. ...
Not incidentally, these same investments [in energy innovation] also offer the only route to the breakthrough technologies we need to address the daunting challenges of energy security, rapidly accelerating energy demand and climate change."
In January, Teryn Norris and I cautioned about the "Danger of Green Stimulus" and called for "a shift from green jobs to a broader focus on green technology," a called echoed by Dr. Hockfield in the inspirational conclusion of her remarks:
"In hard times, America always invents its way to a brighter future. We have done it before, and we can do it again. For Americans out of work today, new "green jobs" will help. But for tomorrow, we need new green industries. And the only way to build those industries is by investing ambitiously now in basic and applied research."
Couldn't have said it better myself, Dr. Hockfield.
Since this is the thirdtime now we've highlighted Susan Hockfield's spot-on remarks at the Breakthrough Blog, I think it's time she joins Energy Secretary and Nobel laureate Dr. Stephen Chu and dons the (entirely unofficial) mantle of "Honorary Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow." Read on for her full remarks...
With scientific reports on climate change getting more and more dire and a major top-to-bottom reorganization of the entire massive global energy system needed to overcome the climate/energy challenge, it may be high time we invest in an insurance policy...
In a thought-provoking piece at the Energy Collective (registration req'd) and Huffington Post Green, Marc Gunther interviews geoengineering expert David Victor and asks us to look hard at potential options to save the climate.
With scientific reports on climate change getting more and more dire and a major top-to-bottom reorganization of the entire massive global energy system needed to overcome the climate/energy challenge, it may be high time we invest in an insurance policy, including R&D in geoengineering and new carbon capture technologies (like biochar) that may offer new options to help mitigate the potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change.
Still, there are tough questions ahead, which Gunther takes a crack at in his post. You can read it below the fold....
Shellenberger interviews with Planet Forward TV and argues that rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels in the 21st century demands large-scale public investment in technology innovation to make clean energy cheap. See the clip here, and look for this new show which premieres at 8 p.m. April 15, 2009 on PBS.
"Political will and a price on CO2 won't be enough to bring about low-carbon energy sources" needed to overcome the global energy and climate challenge, concludes Sharon Begley in an upcoming piece in Newsweek. Major investments to accelerate energy innovation are much needed, and "the clock is ticking" she writes.
"Political will and a price on CO2 won't be enough to bring about low-carbon energy sources" needed to overcome the global energy and climate challenge, concludes Sharon Begley in an excellent piece, "We Can't Get There from Here," due out in the upcoming issue of Newsweek (and online now here).
Begley puts the spotlight on Nate Lewis of CalTech and Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution who succinctly explain the massive scale of the challenge and why we currently lack the full portfolio of energy technologies necessary to overcome it. "The clock is ticking," Begley concludes, and investments to accelerate energy innovation are much needed.
UN Climate Czar Yvo de Boer joins IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri and Obama Climate Envoy Todd Stern to offer a "reality check" before upcoming international climate negotiations.
It appears that there is an effort underway (whether coordinated or just coincident) from the Obama Administration, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and United Nations to place a reality check on expectations for United States climate policy progress in advance of the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.
Yesterday, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri told UK newspapers that Barack Obama would have a "revolution on his hands" if he tried to implement binding cuts in emissions on the scale that the IPCC's scientific consensus recommends.
"He [Obama] is not going to say by 2020 I'm going to reduce emissions by 30 per cent," Pachauri said. "He'll have a revolution on his hands. He has to do it step by step."
Pachauri's word's echo those of U.S. special climate envoy, Todd Stern, who recently stated that the 25-40% emissions cuts called for by the IPCC are "beyond the realm of the feasible" in the U.S. Congress. Stern called for a focus on "the art of the possible," saying "we need to be guided both by science and by common sense."
For the activists and advocates of my generation, the 2008 election was possibly our first taste of political success. And despite the daunting task of starting our careers in a plummeting economy, there is a sense of hope for those of us who eventually plan to make a living off clean energy, sustainable development, environmental design, and other green jobs.
But between today and the clean energy economy of tomorrow, we still have a lot to do. After witnessing Obama's election and inauguration, and after Power Shift 2009 (the party of the year for the youth climate movement), what can the youth movement do to sustain momentum and advance energy and environmental solutions? It has become clear that the traditional model of youth activism must be improved upon. Although canvassing, rallying, and subscribing to a larger movement can be important political tools, the problems we face today demand more from this generation of activists. On Tuesday, Teryn Norris and Jesse Jenkins called for an "innovation-centric approach" to climate and energy, urging the youth of today to use their strengths and passions to solve the challenge of making clean energy cheap. The new model for youth activism should empower individuals to rise to this challenge.
Just like the "Sputnik" generation committed itself to the Cold War and led the information technology revolution, today's generation must commit itself to the Terawatt Challenge and lead the global energy revolution.
The opportunity to advance transformative, progressive change has never been greater. Now, in the wake of the 2008 election and the historic Power Shift summit, young progressives have a unique opportunity to take a step back and look at the big picture: How can the we continue advancing bold solutions on energy and climate? What can young people do beyond energy and climate? And if national climate legislation succeeds, what's the next "Big Idea" for the progressive youth movement?
These are just some of the ideas we're exploring in a Special Breakthrough Issue - "After Power Shift: What's Next?" - to examine the next steps for the progressive youth movement. The issue will include contributions from some of the country's top young leaders throughout the week, and we hope you'll join the discussion. Here's our first piece to kick it off.
Over 12,000 young adults attended the recent Power Shift 2009 summit in Washington, DC. Their goal? Building the largest youth movement in decades to save the world from global warming.
Largely missing from Power Shift, however, was a critical group: young scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. Maybe it was mid-terms. Perhaps the event seemed too political. Or maybe the summit recruited too many traditionally-defined "activists."
Whatever the cause, we have very little chance of overcoming climate change without enlisting young innovators at a drastically greater scale. Simply put, they represent one of the most important catalysts for creating a clean energy economy and achieving long-term prosperity.
The reason is this: at its core, climate change is a challenge of technology innovation. Over the next four decades, global energy demand will approximately double. Most of this growth will happen in developing nations as they continue lifting their citizens out of poverty and building modern societies. But over the same period, global greenhouse gas emissions must fall dramatically to avert the worst consequences of climate change.
Last Thursday, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu delivered groundbreaking Congressional testimony (testimony PDF) to the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee about Obama's energy plan and what's necessary to create a clean energy economy:
"Our previous investments in science led to the birth of the semiconductor, computer, and bio-technology industries that have added greatly to our economic prosperity. Now, we need similar breakthroughs on energy. We're already taking steps in the right direction, but we need to do more...
Developing Science and Engineering Talent: Several years ago, I had the honor and privilege of working on the "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" report commissioned by Chairman Bingaman and Senator Alexander. One of the key recommendations was to step up efforts to educate the next generation of scientists and engineers. The FY 2010 budget supports graduate fellowship programs that will train students in energy-related fields. I will also seek to build on DOE's existing research strengths by attracting and retaining the most talented scientists.
Focusing on Transformational Research. The second area that I want to discuss is the need to support transformational technology research. What do I mean by transformational technology? I mean technology that is game-changing, as opposed to merely incremental...
Speeding Demonstration and Deployment: While we work on transformational technologies, DOE must also improve its efforts to demonstrate next-generation technologies and to help deploy demonstrated clean energy technologies at scale...
We will move forward on all of these fronts and more, as we invest in the transformational research to achieve breakthroughs that could revolutionize our Nation's energy future."
Breakthrough Senior Fellow Marty Hoffert joins panel of experts calling for major, direct government investments and targeted public policies designed to spur high-risk, high-reward energy innovation.
Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow Marty Hoffert joined a panel of energy experts from both industry and academia at an American Association for the Advancement of Science panel on energy innovation held in Washington D.C. this week. The panel of experts called for major, direct government investments and targeted public policies designed to spur high-risk, high-reward energy innovation.
Businesses and the private sector are ill-suited to perform the kind of critical, long-term energy research needed to solve national energy challenges, panelists said, calling for targeted public policies and investments designed to drive improvements and lower costs of clean energy technologies.
They also encouraged federal energy R&D initiatives to not overlook some of the more outlandish proposals for new energy and climate technologies, including space-based solar power and geoengineering techniques. With early-stage R&D a low-cost investment, putting money behind these potentially high-payoff technologies has no downside, they say.
Read on for excerpts from Energy and Environment Daily's coverage of the AAAS panel...
If you're looking closely at the public investments Obama plans to pair with his carbon pricing proposals, you've got to start worrying: if Obama remains committed to spending just $15 billion per year to spur a new energy economy, America will fail in that endeavor.
The public is overwhelmingly behind President Obama right now, and if he was elected with a mandate to do anything beyond stem the economic crisis, it was a mandate to build a new, clean energy economy that finally secures America's energy independence and averts potentially catastrophic climate change.
Yet once you start looking at the critical areas for public investment - research, development and demonstration, or RD&D; critical infrastructure, like a modernized electrical grid; deployment incentives to spur emerging technologies; and efficiency incentives, financing and other investments to retrofit American homes, businesses and factories - it's not hard to see why $15 billion per year is simply not up to the task.
"If the U.S. is to invent its way out of climate change, which some suggest is our only hope, it will need to spend [a] lot more and a lot more wisely on basic energy research."
In his latest piece, Time magazine's energy and climate writer Bryan Walsh takes readers beyond carbon pricing, to look at the more active government engagement in energy innovation necessary in the race against climate change.
"[A] growing chorus of experts is beginning to doubt whether cap-and-trade alone will reduce CO2 enough to curb runaway climate change," Walsh writes, before turning to the need for new energy innovation on an unprecedented scale. As Walsh writes, "If the U.S. is to invent its way out of climate change, which some suggest is our only hope, it will need to spend [a] lot more and a lot more wisely on basic energy research."
At a public event at an efficient co-generation power plant in China, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama Climate Envoy Todd Stern both discuss the importance of partnership and collaboration to develop and deploy clean, cheap energy technologies to power sustainable development in China.
Are these the first signs of a new Obama Administration strategy for U.S.-China engagement on climate change? Are Clinton and Stern preparing to embark on a strategy focused explicitly on harnessing the best and brightest researchers, entrepreneurs and businesses and leveraging major investments on both sides of the Pacific to develop and deploy clean, cheap and scalable energy sources?
I'll be writing more about this tomorrow, but for now, the full transcript of their remarks are below. I'm interested in your reaction to these remarks and your thoughts on how the United States and the Obama Administration should engage China to ensure a climate stability and to help drive sustainable development in China?
The President of MIT invoked innovations in electronics, aerospace and computing, all payed for by federal investment, as industries and growth sectors that provided decades of prosperity for the American economy.
In an op-ed in the Boston Globe today, Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Susan Hockfield championed long term federal investments in technologies and technology-based sectors as an engine of long term economic growth.
Hockfield invokes World War II and Cold War investments in education and fundamental and applied research and development, citing the many technological innovations--in electronics, aerospace, computing and communications and others--that directly resulted from these investments. These innovations, she points out, and created industries and growth sectors that provided decades of prosperity for the American economy. Hockfield writes:
With stimulus plans now in place, Congress and the Obama administration must plant the seeds of longer-term economic growth. Economists broadly agree that more than half of US economic growth since World War II has come from technological innovation, much of it stemming from federally funded, fundamental research. In the late 1990s, for example, US productivity grew at more than 3 percent per year. The revolution in information technology - a direct outgrowth of federally funded research - was pivotal to this extraordinary growth.
Citing the potential for future technological breakthroughs to help America overcome pressing national challenges, she continues:
Finding new energy answers may be the most pressing concern, given the implications of the current energy mix for the economy, national security and climate change. To help unleash an innovation wave in energy technology, the United States must go beyond the priorities of the stimulus package, which aims to create tens of thousands of "green jobs"; it must now invest in the kind of research and innovation that will ultimately spin-off millions of jobs by building a new economy. This includes investing in early- and later-stage research on the most promising technologies; funding new R&D centers to accelerate critical breakthroughs; equipping research labs with state-of-the-art instrumentation for advanced research, prototyping and demonstration of emerging technologies; and training a new energy talent base.
With debate over the stimulus coming to an end, progressives need to begin using the recovery bill as a springboard to advocate for a new model of governance that values sustained federal investments that can yield broad societal benefits and fuel economic growth. It is great that MIT's respected president is moving the discourse around creating a new progressive economic philosophy for forward.
Chu says "second industrial revolution" needed in energy technology. Calls for Nobel-level "breakthroughs" in biomass, batteries and solar power to offer "better choices" in fight to overcome energy and climate challenges.
In a candid conversation with reporters yesterday, newly-confirmed Energy Secretary Dr. Stephen Chu called for "a second industrial revolution" in energy technology to overcome the world's energy and climate challenges.
Sounding like an honorary Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow, Dr. Chu said solving these pressing challenges would require Nobel-level "breakthroughs" in at least three core energy technologies: advanced batteries for vehicles, new crops for biomass energy, and solar panels cheap enough to deploy without subsidy.
The following is a question and answer question with Breakthrough Institute friend and ally Dr. Dan Sarewitz. Dr. Sarewitz is the co-Director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University. His thinking about how innovation happens, and how government and society can best foster technology innovation makes his insights invaluable to policymakers, engineers and others who seek to transform's America's energy system from its current fossil-fuel dependent form into a clean, low carbon system that utilizes a myriad of new technologies.
Adam: Dr. Sarewitz, your work on innovation policy has forced you to confront some hard truths about the limits of policy in driving technology innovation and deployment. Would you say that we know how to properly draft policy that stimulates the proper technology innovation necessary to transition to a low-carbon energy system in America?
Dr. Sarewitz: In fact we do understand how to stimulate innovation. What we don't understand is how to drive innovation down particular social paths to yield particular society-wide outcomes over particular time frames.
Adam: So setting a goal like "80 percent emissions reduction by 2050"--deciding on an outcome and a time frame--aren't exactly helpful to the job of decarbonizing an energy system?
We must work hard to turn centrism from a refuge for misers and penny pinchers into a platform for those who believe in good returns on wise investments.
After the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in the lower chamber of Congress with absolutely no support from House Republicans two weeks ago, it was hard to predict what shape the debate would take in the Senate. But with perspective, the course of the Senate debate offers lessons for how we could secure investments in making clean energy cheap, and transform American politics in the process.
Just as it seemed that debate over the stimulus might stall, Ben Nelson, a Democrat from Nebraska, and Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine took the lead in an effort to bring a centrist approach to the bill in order to secure bipartisan support. What came out of this effort is a bill that slashes necessary and fast acting stimulus in the form of aid for state budgets and money for education, among other spending measures, while expanding tax cuts that will help the more affluent disproportionately to middle and lower class Americans.
In an in-depth proposal for new energy innovation, the Brookings Institution calls for an "order of magnitude increase" in federal energy R&D and the establishment of a new network of regionally-based "Energy Discovery Innovation Institutes."
The Brookings Institution officially unveiled a new proposal yesterday calling for "a new paradigm in energy innovation" at an event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The proposal, which was developed for over a year and is one of the most in-depth proposals for new energy R&D out there, calls for an "order of magnitude" increase in federal energy R&D investment and proposes a new model for clean energy technology research and commercialization: establishing a national network of regionally-based "Energy Discovery-Innovation Institutes" (e-DIIs) to serve as hubs of distributed research linking the nation's best scientists, engineers, and facilities and effectively combining the forces of academia, government and industry.
Japan's stimulus missteps reinforce the argument that our recovery program should be focused on modern infrastructure--not traditional public works--in addition to spending on other national priorities such as energy and education.
An article in last week's New York Times delved into Japan's "Lost Decade," - the prolonged period of economic stagnation that hit the nation in the 1990s - and explores what lessons for U.S. stimulus efforts can be learned from Japan's efforts to restart their economy. The article's findings echo some of the argumentsBreakthroughhasbeenmaking regarding the stimulus debate. Japan's stimulus missteps reinforce the argument that our recovery program should be focused on modern infrastructure--not traditional public works--in addition to spending on other national priorities such as energy and education.
The Times story begins with a look at which types of public spending helped Japan grow out of its recession, and which types stifled recovery:
[I]t matters what gets built: Japan spent too much on increasingly wasteful roads and bridges, and not enough in areas like education and social services, which studies show deliver more bang for the buck than [traditional] infrastructure spending.
"It is not enough just to hire workers to dig holes and then fill them in again," said Toshihiro Ihori, an economics professor at the University of Tokyo. "One lesson from Japan is that public works get the best results when they create something useful for the future."
The political consensus surrounding climate policy is collapsing. If you are not aware of this fact you will be very soon. The collapse is not due to the cold winter in places you may live or see on the news. It is not due to years without an increase in global temperature. It is not due to the overturning of the scientific consensus on the role of human activity in the global climate system.
It is due to the fact that policy makers and their political advisors (some trained as scientists) can no longer avoid the reality that targets for stabilization such as 450 ppm (or even less realistic targets) are simply not achievable with the approach to climate change that has been at the focus of policy for over a decade. Policies that are obviously fictional and fantasy are frequently subject to a rapid collapse.
The current shrillness that has been put on display by many politically-active climate scientists and the feeding-frenzy among their skeptical political opposition can be explained as a result of this looming collapse, though many will confuse the shrillness and feeding-frenzy as a cause of the collapse. Let me explain.
NPR had a story today about the shifting conceptual paradigms of climate change and climate change solutions. Essentially a conversation with Dan Sarewitz, one of the leading thinkers studying innovation and technology policy, the piece gets at some fundamental truths regarding energy, society and the immense challenge of rebuilding the entire global energy system. The entire segment is about 4 and half minutes, and I would recommend listening to the entire thing. From the story:
Using energy "is really the metabolism of modern industrial society," [Sarewitz] says. "And changing that system is not about replacing a few technologies or advancing our level of efficiency along certain fronts."
It means creating a whole new basis for the global economy. Sarewitz is skeptical that politicians can deliberately manage a transformation of that scale, either through legislation or through climate treaties. He says, for starters, measures that will ultimately force everyone to pay more for energy are doomed both economically and politically.
"Politically, what you're asking people to do is to pay a huge upfront cost for benefits many decades down the road that they can't even anticipate or predict. And that is politically an extremely difficult sort of situation to manage," Sarewitz says.
...
"The economic dislocation that would be created by getting to that sort of level would absolutely be immense," he says. "And it's easy to be casual about that or it's easy to pin that kind of argument on conservative Republicans or on the executives of oil corporations, but nevertheless it is absolutely true you would be talking about something that would be destabilizing to global economies."
A strategy aimed at making clean energy cheap in real, unsubsidized returns through strategic investments could generate the kind of growth the economy needs not just for the next 2 but 20 years.
There's an interesting, if frustrating, piece by David Leonhardt in the New York Times Magazine this week on the need for a strategy for long-term growth, not just short term stimulus. In it he makes a critique of green jobs -- and offers up pollution pricing orthodoxy.
"Green jobs can certainly provide stimulus. Obama's proposal includes subsidies for companies that make wind turbines, solar power and other alternative energy sources, and these subsidies will create some jobs. But the subsidies will not be nearly enough to eliminate the gap between the cost of dirty, carbon-based energy and clean energy. Dirty-energy sources -- oil, gas and coal -- are cheap. That's why we have become so dependent on them.
The only way to create huge numbers of clean-energy jobs would be to raise the cost of dirty-energy sources, as Obama's proposed cap-and-trade carbon-reduction program would do, to make them more expensive than clean energy. This is where the green-jobs dream gets complicated."
Will US "Climate Envoy" Todd Stern be prepared to advocate a fresh start on a new international climate framework, or will he dust off his old play book and continue to work towards an ineffective and illusory "hard" cap on emissions and a global emissions trading scheme?
Todd Stern will be named by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the U.S. State Department's special "Climate Envoy," news outlets reported today. Stern's climate credentials include a stint as a senior negotiator representing Bill Clinton's White House at the Kyoto Protocol talks, a role he'll likely reprise at the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks this December.
As a high level negotiator at Kyoto in 1997, Stern helped forge an international climate reduction framework that has been largely ineffective (see Michael and Ted's essay, "Scrap Kyoto", here [pdf]). Stern's appointment thus makes one wonder: has the Clinton-era negotiator learned the lessons of the past 12 years and is now prepared to offer a new direction at the Copenhagen talks? Or does Stern's appointment signal that the Obama administration's official thinking on international climate policy is still stuck in the winter of 1997?
Pelosi's remarks seem to point to a new frame for energy politics which is focused on driving technology innovation and deploying low-carbon technologies.
Yesterday, in an article in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hometown paper, the San lFrancisco Chronicle, arguably the second-most-powerful person in the country made a significant break from carbon pricing orthodoxy in remarks she made on future cap-and-trade legislation.
"I believe we have to [pass a cap-and-trade bill] because we see that as a source of revenue," she said, noting that proposed cap-and-trade bills would raise billions of dollars by forcing major emitters to buy credits to release greenhouse gases. "Cap-and-trade is there for a reason. You cap and you trade so you can pay for some of these investments in energy independence and renewables."
This description of the reasons for enacting a cap-and-trade scheme is a remarkable--and laudable--shift in climate legislation discourse. Speaker Pelosi's remarks show an increased understanding of the importance of technology investment in reducing carbon emissions and securing energy independence.
If you accept that making clean energy cheap should be the primary objective for climate policy, you become largely indifferent about the revenue stream for public technology investments.
As the prospects for high carbon pricing and cap and trade continue to diminish in the midst of a severe economic recession, some climate advocates are beginning to wonder: is there any alternative? In a recent op-ed we wrote for the Huffington Post, we argued:
Despite Obama's appointments, climate advocates are thus left to worry: is Obama really prepared to expend his political capital championing a policy that will increase U.S. energy prices in the midst of a recession?
Not likely. Until recently Obama voiced support for carbon regulation, declaring at a governors' climate conference in mid-November that his climate agenda "will start with a federal cap and trade system." But since then, as the recession has deepened, he has said little to nothing about cap and trade...
A serious alternative to cap and trade would focus on making clean energy cheap, prioritizing major, sustained public investments to drive down the price of green technologies as quickly as possible. This would require federal investments on the scale of $500 billion over the next decade to support and accelerate each stage of the energy innovation pipeline: research, development, demonstration, and deployment.
Matthew Yglesias, an author and writer at the Center for American Progress, addressed this issue directly in a post yesterday titled "No Alternative," where he argued there is no better alternative to carbon pricing:
Reading through the section in the stimulus devoted to energy, a glaring lack of spending and the absence of any sort of cohesive guiding framework both give reason for pause.
Barack Obama has finally been sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America. For once, there is no debate among pundits or Capitol Hill insiders about what Obama's first priority will be as President. It seems like President Obama has been working on crafting an economic stimulus bill since November 5th, and now the real work begins in earnest.
Last week, despite reports from the Congressional Budget Office that our economy will likely face $2 trillion of lost production over the next two years, Obama rolled out a stimulus plan that only spends $825 billion to make up for this gap in production. A summary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, released by the House Appropriations Committee, gives us the first detailed look at how this money will be spent and invested. Reading through the section devoted to energy in particular, a glaring lack of spending and the absence of any sort of cohesive guiding framework both give reason for pause.
As it becomes clear that chasing an illusory "hard" cap on carbon emissions is a losing proposition, green groups must turn to new strategies to address the urgent threat of climate change.
The U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of corporations including General Electric and Duke Energy in addition to environmental groups such as the Natural Resource Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund, released a "blueprint" for climate legislation today. Essentially a Cap-and-Trade system, the legislative recommendation reads like a sequel to the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.
The report was released today, and already the fallout has perfectly captured the existential moment that the major green groups are experiencing right now in their increasingly urgent efforts to address climate change on a national and global scale.
The defeat of Lieberman-Warner, the oil drilling debate, and global recession have awakened the greens to the immovable political truth that politicians will never enact, and the public will always reject climate legislation that significantly increases energy prices. This truth undermines the power and attraction to cap and trade that has made it the preferred legislation of climate activists for two decades.
As if you needed another sign of the political challenges facing a climate strategy centered around dramatically increasing the price of fossil fuels, here you have Dr. Chu, who understands the urgency of the climate challenge better than just about anyone, apparently recognizing that increasing energy prices during a recession just isn't going to happen.
Confirmations were held today for Energy Secretary-designate Steven Chu, Nobel laureate and director of Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL). Chu, a clean energy expert, is well known for turning the Berkeley Lab into a center of clean energy and efficiency innovation, forging the Berkeley Lab-British Petroleum partnership, sitting on the Copenhagen Climate Council, and winning a Nobel Prize in physics in 1997.
Suffice it to say that Chu has a deep and nuanced grasp of the many variables and drivers that contribute to global warming and he understands the scale of the challenge as well as anyone. As an administrator at LBNL, Dr. Chu worked to secure increased funding for research in clean energy and efficiency. And as an academic, Chu was able to speak candidly--and in fact, quite bluntly--about energy and climate issues.
Not any more! Dr. Chu has arrived inside the Beltway now, and already his tone is changing...
Clean energy advocates who are motivated to transition from oil for reasons of national security have a new reason to lobby for clean technology innovation in America:
"[E]ven as President-elect Barack Obama talks about promoting green jobs as America's route out of recession, gulf states, including the emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are making a concerted push to become the Silicon Valley of alternative energy."
It seems that Middle Eastern states that enjoy a high standard of living due to their thriving oil industries have recognized that due to rising population, societal change and global warming, oil will not be the fuel of the future. And they are taking steps to build new energy industries. The Times article reports that entities in Middle East petro-states are investing in things like alternative energy, carbon capture and low carbon cement on the order billions of dollars:
The goal of a "stimulus" is to put the economy back on the path it was on before the downturn started. But this should not be the goal of Obama's economic plan--to return us to the time when college grads went to Wall Street to make a quick buck by trading back and forth on dubious mortgages.
Last week, Obama announced his stimulus package, a plan to spend nearly 800 billion dollars on infrastructure projects, modernizing schools and health records, expanding clean energy production, providing much-needed relief for state budgets, and extending tax cuts to 95% of working Americans.
By most standards, this is a big stimulus plan that could do a lot to bolster confidence, increase consumer spending and unfreeze credit. And yet, as Paul Krugman put it last week,
"To close a gap of more than $2 trillion -- possibly a lot more, if the budget office projections turn out to be too optimistic -- Mr. Obama offers a $775 billion plan. And that's not enough.
... The bottom line is that the Obama plan is unlikely to close more than half of the looming output gap, and could easily end up doing less than a third of the job."
In Northern Virginia today, President-elect Barack Obama addressed the nation, introducing a few basic goals and guidelines for an economic stimulus package that could cost as much as a trillion dollars.
Well aware that the large price tag on the stimulus, referred to as the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," Obama included language about setting a foundation for economic growth now in order to return to a place of fiscal responsibility as the economy gets back on its feet. However, Obama was not shy about the need for the government to step in and spend, now:
"It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy - where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit."
A cautionary note about losing sight of climate objectives amidst all the fervor about green jobs and green stimulus. ... Jesse Jenkins and Teryn Norris in the Huffington Post.
The Huffington Post has featured an op-ed by me and Jesse Jenkins, "The Danger of Green Stimulus," which issues a cautionary note about losing sight of climate objectives amidst all the fervor about green jobs and green stimulus:
Barack Obama's final appointments in December indicate a strong commitment to action on climate change. Steven Chu as Energy Secretary, Carol Browner as Energy & Climate Czar, John Holdren as Assistant for Science and Technology -- just to name a few recent selections -- are all proponents of vigorous action to cut U.S. global warming pollution and take leadership on a new international climate treaty. And Hilda Solis, Obama's new Labor Secretary, is a champion of "green jobs."
All is well on the climate front, it seems. Except that it's not.
Carbon cap and trade regulation remains the top federal policy priority for the majority of environmental groups. But in June, cap and trade legislation failed in the Senate, and sixteen Democratic Senators from coal and manufacturing-heavy states voiced their opposition to high carbon pricing. The policy faces even greater obstacles in today's economic climate, since it would increase the energy bills of the American public.
On January 21st, immediately after assuming office, Barack Obama's first priority will be passing an economic stimulus package that will provide the economic kick-in-the-pants necessary to avoid the next Great Depression. There's nearly unanimous consensus that a major stimulus investment is needed to stave off economic disaster. How the next administration plans to fit this stimulus into a larger economic revitalization plan, however, is still unclear.
So far, there's plenty of focus on traditional methods of stimulus: tax cuts to spur consumer spending and traditional infrastructure investments to rebuild roads and bridges. Unfortunately, a short-term focus on roads and rebates won't be enough to stave off a new depression or put our economy back on track. Instead, we must focus on investments that can both act as short-term stimulus and improve the long-term productivity of the US economy. And that means investing in innovation.
As Janet Rae-Dupree wrote in the New York Times on Saturday:
The Efficiency Trap will be easy to fall into--it is politically expedient and it lies at the intersection of energy and economic issues that propelled voters to pull the lever for Barack Obama in the first place.
An efficiency stimulus plan seems at first glance to be an unadulterated good: it puts Americans to work, saves energy and money, and cuts greenhouse gas emissions, all with investments that should pay for themselves. But there are reasons to be nervous about the overwhelming focus on energy efficiency by green leaders and Obama's top energy and climate advisors. This narrow focus threatens to distract from the critical work ahead: overcoming the technology gap that exists between the current state (and cost) of today's clean energy technologies and fossil fuels.
An efficiency program will not create the new industries that the American economy needs to increase employment and productivity in the long term. An efficiency program will not create new exports that will bring global capital in to the American economy. And, equally as important as short term stimulus, America needs to have a plan to achieve those objectives as quickly as possible as well.
Obama's primary focus must be on making clean energy cheap -- what Google calls RE<C, renewable energy cheaper than coal -- not on reducing energy consumption.
By Ron Hira Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Rochester Institute of Technology
In introducing Bill Richardson as his Administration's Commerce Secretary, President-elect Barack Obama declared that Richardson would lead the charge to "create millions of new jobs that can never be outsourced." This kind of rhetoric shouldn't surprise anyone since Mr. Obama criticized the practice of companies moving jobs offshore often during the campaign and used it to his political advantage.
Alas, the reality is that Mr. Obama has not backed up his rhetoric with a plan to create and retain jobs here. His proposals on tax deferment and a 1% tax credit for so-called "Patriot Employers" would have an insignificant impact on what is a major structural shift in how the economy operates. And early indications are that Mr. Obama is not going to make either of these proposals, which would face fierce political opposition from companies, a priority. There are no other specific proposals from Mr. Obama that address outsourcing, and it's doubtful that any are forthcoming. His economic advisors are either involved in shipping jobs overseas as CEOs or have supported the practice in policy, think tank or academic positions.
We have to reform our strategy if we're to build the clean-energy Googles, the green-business Amgens, and green-job Dells of the future. We will only do that with government at our side.
Experience is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it leads to the wrong conclusion. We've all heard the chestnut about generals fighting the last war. Today in the cleantech world, the rules of government engagement that we learned from our proving grounds in information technology and biotech are hurting us. We have to reform our strategy if we're to build the clean-energy Googles, the green-business Amgens, and green-job Dells of the future.
When many of us built successful internet and computer companies we we avoided active government engagement. We didn't particularly want government as a partner or customer and certainly not as a regulatory agent. We thought government support was the kiss of death. When we did engage it was usually after our companies were large and profitable and then only after we perceived assaults like regulation, internet sales tax, export controls, intellectual property, and stock option accounting. Even today, if you are a software, computer, or internet startup, you can largely ignore the government other than obeying the law.
"Energy efficiency cannot be seen as Job 1 and the other stuff Job 2. You've got to do them all as Job 1 because they all have to work."
-Dr. Nathan Lewis, California Institute of Technology, in today's New York Times piece, "Hard Task for New Team on Energy and Climate. Dr. Lewis explains why any program on climate-friendly energy must move forward on three prongs simultaneously: increasing efficiency, moving existing nonpolluting energy technologies more rapidly into the market, and advancing on the frontiers of energy science in search of radical breakthroughs.
It is heartening to see the New York Times leading the way in this shifting discourse while placing public investment in its rightful place as a core solution to climate change.
The New York Times editorial board, including respected environmental writer Bob Semple, broke from its past focus on carbon pricing as the primary solution to climate change in an editorial about Obama's newly announced energy and climate team. The piece praised Energy Secretary-designate Dr. Steven Chu for his views on the climate challenge:
"What sets [Chu] apart is his fierce conviction that innovation is just as important as regulation, and that big energy problems, like climate change and the world's dependency on fossil fuels, will not be solved without major private and public investment in the development and deployment of nonpolluting technologies."
The proposed bailout is an obvious stall tactic that will amount to nothing in the long term unless more dramatic actions to restructure and reinvent the American auto industry are taken.
Last night, the US House of Representatives approved $14 billion in emergency
loans to keep GM and Chrysler on life support into the new year.
Senate Republicans are in revolt though and may block passage without new amendments to allow more dramatic restructuring of the company's debt.
"If we don't have the forced restructuring plans in place, many of us
don't believe that American car companies will come out of this in a
competitive position and the taxpayers' money will be wasted," Senator John Ensign told the Washington Post(R-Nev.). I hate to say it, but I'm forced to agree with Republicans on this account: $14 billion to prop up GM and Chrysler until Obama
takes office is an obvious half measure, a stall tactic that will
merely punt the tough decisions down the line another couple months.
While it may buy us a month or three, the proposed bailout will amount to
nothing in the long term unless more dramatic actions to restructure
and reinvent the American auto industry are taken.
Last week in response to Michael and Ted's piece in The American Prospect, Bradford Plumer at The New Republic's "The Vine" wrote a piece called "Should We Forget About Carbon Pricing? (No.)" The post, which mischaracterizes the stances Michael and Ted take in the Prospect piece, also propagates the myth of successful emissions reductions in Europe.
"Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger have yet another essay arguing that environmentalists should abandon all hope of trying to cap or tax carbon emissions, and instead focus solely on subsidizing clean-energy sources if they want to avert drastic global warming.
...Simply having the Energy Department dole out $50 billion per year to clean-energy producers (as Nordhaus and Shellenberger suggest) will pale beside the amount of private-sector money that will flow to alternative energy and efficiency improvements if carbon is priced properly."
This characterization of S&N's positions in The American Prospect and the Breakthrough Institute in general is a strawman.
In the end, we'll have a new kind of American auto company - leaner and nimbler, and under a new class of managers - and a new kind of America auto industry.
The executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler made yet another trek to Washington DC this week - this time ditching the corporate jets to drive hybrid cars - and once again pled for a federal bailout to prop up their struggling companies. Up to $34 billion taxpayer dollars are apparently all that stands between at least two of the "Big Three" automakers and bankruptcy.
GM's executives told Congress the company will fail very, very soon unless it receives at least $12 billion in loans in the coming months. Chrysler warned they could go belly up by year's end without $7 billion in government aid. Even Ford, which is doing a bit better than its two Detroit brethren, is asking for an open, taxpayer-funded line of credit of up to $9 billion dollars.
All this means its time for Congress and the American public to face two basic facts.
Without clean, affordable and massively scalable energy sources, the world will be stuck in the Development Trap: we'll be forced to either sacrifice our climate and ecological security in the name of global development or condemn billions of global citizens to poverty in the name of climate protection.
The stark tone of the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2008 is a dramatic departure from their normally staid and frequently rosy projections about the world's energy future (I presented highlights from the piece in this proceeding post). The report's opening statement that current world energy trends are "patently unsustainable" will no doubt receive the most attention in headlines across the blogosphere and mainstream news. But in this post, I want to delve deeper into the key statement that follows it:
"It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply."
While the environmental community focuses primarily on the latter of those two concerns, the IEA appropriately recognizes that the future of human prosperity depends on our ability to tackle both challenges: decarbonizing the energy supply and providing ample and affordable energy supplies to power global development.
In short, the IEA confirms what is perhaps the central challenge of the 21st century: developing clean and affordable energy sources to power the globe.
Forget incrementally improvements in fuel economy. It's time to radically re-invent the American automobile, recapture the competitive edge in automotive technology and ensure that the average car gets 100 mpg by 2020.
With a new bailout for Detroit on the table, there's a lot of talk about getting some "grand bargain" with automakers out of the deal: automakers will agree to some terms, like producing more efficient vehicles, in exchange for the loans.
In fact, the direct loans approved by the 2007 Energy Bill require auto companies to use the funds to retool factories that produce vehicles that get 25% better fuel economy than the average vehicle in it's class. That's a start.
But the real grand bargain, in my opinion, is to bust out of this incremental improvements mentality for fuel economy. We don't need incremental improvements, we need exponential improvements in fuel economy. Here's how it could work...
Breakthrough Institute is hosting an essay competition to answer the question: What will it take to reinvent the American auto industry? We will publish the best responses on our home page, www.thebreakthrough.org. Please submit your op-eds to oped@thebreakthrough.org.
In 2005, with GM and Ford teetering perilously close to bankruptcy, the Breakthrough Institute created the Healthcare for Hybrids proposal with Senator Barack Obama, Representative Jay Inslee, and the Center for American Progress, a plan which would have linked fuel-economy increases to relieving health care costs for U.S. automakers. Today, with the industry again on the brink of collapse, we invite you to join us is exploring a new question for the new era:
What will it take to reinvent the American auto industry?
We will publish the best responses on our home page, www.thebreakthrough.org. Please submit your op-eds to oped@thebreakthrough.org and paste or type your content into the body of the message; please do not send attachments.
As we enter a new economic and political era, we face an extraordinary opportunity to advance long-term investments in our economic future and build a new economic governance model to drive American growth, competitiveness, and leadership in the 21st century.
The good news: an elite consensus is crystallizing around the need for massive economic stimulus funded by deficit spending. Hundreds of economists are calling for stimulus on the scale of 2-3 percent of GDP -- or $300-500 billion per year, equivalent to the expected decline in U.S. consumption as a result of the housing market collapse -- to confront the recession head-on.
The bad news: this growing consensus may only support short-term stimulus investments - such as aid to state and local governments, extended unemployment benefits, and rebate checks - without any long-term economic strategy. Infrastructure spending is gaining support, but mostly for proposals that have already been planned and scheduled. Given the increasingly dim prospects for long-term U.S. competitiveness, it's critical that we think smart and act quickly to secure our economic future. As Harvard Business School guru Michael Porter put it in last week's BusinessWeek cover story:
This is the second post in a continuing series delving into Barack Obama's opportunity to capture this political moment and provide a direction for energy policy and economic growth in the 21st century.Part 1 is here.
As Barack Obama assumes the mantle of President-elect of the United
States of America, we are witnessing an historic realignment of the
American political landscape. With the election of our nation's first
African-American president, record voter turnout, and a dramatically
redrawn electoral map, it seems that anything is possible now.
However, while Obama clearly has a new mandate to lead our nation,
electoral mandates are fickle and even this one could fade in time.
President-elect Obama has just 76 days to prepare for his inauguration.
Then the real work of governing will begin, and what Obama decides to
do in his first 100 days will either cement or erase the wave of
popular support the President-elect rides today.
His job won't be easy. On January 20th, President-elect Obama will
inherit the White House along with a plethora of pressing challenges
all competing for his attention. There will be no time for baby steps,
and President Obama must show bold and effective leadership right out
of the gate. Furthermore, while the economic crisis will remain his top
concern in the short-run, Obama cannot afford to ignore longer-term
challenges and must develop synergistic solutions that can tackle
multiple problems at once.
Thankfully, Barack Obama has stated that building a new energy
economy will be his top priority upon assuming office. If he fully
integrates this effort with his shorter-term economic stimulus plans,
Obama could effectively tackle several priorities - economy recovery,
energy security, and global warming - simultaneously. And getting this
job done right could cement Obama's electoral mandate and pave the way
for a truly transcendent presidency.
China's greenhouse gas emissions could more than double by 2020, according to a new report released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Beijing has been reluctant to release official data on greenhouse gas from the nation's fast-growing use of coal, oil and gas. This new study from the state-run institute breaks that reticence and sends another clear reminder that China is where our quest for climate stability will be won or lost.
"To a significant degree, our planet's energy and environmental future is now being written in China," says the study's authors. And the only way that story has a happy ending is if China has access to clean and cheap energy sources to power its sustainable development.
The Breakthrough Institutes' position on carbon pricing and cap and trade is frequently mischaracterized. As sometimes vocal critics of cap and trade and regulation-centric approaches to climate solutions, we're all too often thrown together with realopponentsof serious action that misuse similar arguments to sow confusion and inaction.
In stark contrast, the Breakthrough Institutes' criticism and concerns about cap and trade are motivated by the desire to see advocates and policymakers adopt successful strategies and policies that can truly put our nation and our planet on a path to climate stability and sustained prosperity. With the climate crisis increasingly urgent, our economy heading south, and a new president and congress soon to be elected, climate and clean energy advocates face a critical moment to re-evaluate our strategies and policies and ensure that we can successfully advance climate solutions in the coming year. In that context in particular, we remain steadfast in the position that our efforts are ill-served by continuing forward with a blinding focus on cap and trade that frequently obscures the critical technology innovation challenge at the true heart of our quest for climate stability (and continued and expanded global prosperity).
In a recent discussion with Eric Pooley, I tried to set the record straight and articulate as clearly as possible where the Breakthrough Institute stands on emissions caps and carbon prices and why. Since that piece was long and covered several subjects, I've reposted and reprised the section on cap and trade and carbon pricing here. So, let the record stand...
Our sometimes blinding focus on emissions caps and carbon prices can obscure the critical technology innovation challenge that lies at the heart of our quest for climate stability (and continued and expanded global prosperity). In the face of a rapidly shifting political climate, it would be a tragedy to hold any one solution to this core challenge hostage to any other.
Eric Pooley's recent piece in Slate, "Save the Economy, Save the Planet," sparked a lot of discussion and thought here at Breakthrough. Pooley is right that climate advocates would be best served finding a "Trojan horse" to advance climate solutions within an economic recovery framework. But his recommendations that the next president advance a cap and trade program sparked both my response, "Can Cap and Dividend Really Save the Economy or the Planet?" and a round table discussion with several climate and policy experts on the opportunities and challenges for new U.S. administration.
I invited Pooley to respond to my post, which was highly critical of the political chances of a Cap and Dividend scheme in today's political and economic climate. Below the fold you'll find our continued dialog on the political challenges and opportunities facing climate advocates in the coming year.
A clean energy economic stimulus plan could truly be climate advocates' "Trojan horse," as columnist Eric Pooley writes. But NOT if they follow Pooley's advice about how to formulate that plan and advance a full-on, economy-wide Cap and Dividend program next year.
The economy is all that matters now, and climate advocates - and the
next President - would be wise to develop a strategic "Trojan horse" to
advance their ecological goals within the framework of economic
recovery. That's the thesis of "Save the Economy, Save the Planet," an article appearing in Slate last week by Eric Pooley.Â
Pooley gets the political analysis right, accurately diagnosing the
potentially incurable political malady that dooms the chances of expansive
carbon regulation in today's economic climate. But when it comes time
to prescribe the remedy, Pooley is off-the-mark, arguing that a Cap and Dividend proposal is just what the doctor ordered.Â
Sorry, but that's the wrong answer. Unfortunately, Pooley is not alone in his
prescribed solution, and it's time we took a close look at the
obstacles to climate action and see just how far Cap and Dividend gets
us (hint: it's not very far...)
Ted and Michael's latest op-ed from the LA Times, "The Green Bubble Bursts," makes the argument that the Democrats lost control of the energy issue when they tried to pass the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would raise energy prices at a time when anxiety over energy prices was at an all time high because of four dollar a gallon gas. Republicans hammered them on the floor of the Senate, and then picked up on drilling and took ownership of energy in their biggest victory since they lost both houses in 2006.
Here are some responses to the LA Times piece:
At Daily Kos, Meteor Blades recaps the need for an investment-centered energy agenda in a post called "Making Clean Energy Cheap".
On The New Republic's environment and energy blog, Day Olopade has taken issue with Ted and Michael in her post, "The Green Bubble Hasn't Burst."
And over at Climate Progress, our colleague Joe Romm has rolled out this.
I will be updating this post as more responses surface. Stay tuned.
In response to Michael and Ted's op-ed in the LA Times, Joe Romm criticized Michael, Ted and Breakthrough on his blog. This post is an open letter from Michael to Joe Romm, dated October 1, 2008.
Your strategy, as usual, is to shoot the messenger rather than confront the facts. This is what you did when you attacked Nature for publishing Roger Pielke, Chris Greene, and Tom Wigley’s “Dangerous Assumptions” about faster-than-expected emissions increases. This is what you did when the International Energy Agency came out and said that stabilization requires technology “breakthroughs” (their word). This is what you did when you attacked those of us who support adaptation as “delayers.” And this is what you are doing in response to the accumulating evidence that governments won’t raise the price of dirty energy to deal with global warming.
The bailout being kicked around inside the beltway this week will do little more than maintain the liquidity of financial firms and save Wall Street from collapse. If we want to do more than just correct our current crisis, then the federal government should commit to investing in a new energy system for the country and the people who will build it.
A large chunk of the reason we are in this current financial crisis is that investors were pouring money into the housing market, creating a bubble that inevitably burst. Investors put their money into sectors of the economy that are experiencing growth, and in the early years of this decade, the only sector that was experiencing consistent growth was housing.
The bailout being kicked around inside the beltway this week will do little more than maintain the liquidity of financial firms whose collapse could send devastating shockwaves around the global economy. Any regulation that is further imposed will serve to ensure that financial firms are a little more conservative in their leverage practices and their credit-swapping. However, in a sense, this only brings our economy back to square one.
Financial meltdown is nearing the end of its first week and Congress is poised to consider $700 billion in emergency legislation. What are the implications for clean energy and climate? Here's my best guess.
1. Automakers will get their bail-out. The automakers want $25 billion, which looks like chump change against the $1 trillion bailout. It looks very much like they'll get it. The question is, what will we get for our $25 billion?
In a debate at the Cato Institute, Shellenberger and Nordhaus argue that liberals and conservatives don't need to agree about the seriousness of global warming. We can all embrace investment in energy infrastructure, technology, and education for reasons that have nothing to do with climate change.
For 20 years, liberals and conservatives have been locked in a debate about the relative seriousness of climate change. Conservatives have either denied that it was happening or played down its significance, while liberals and environmentalists have tended to see it as ecological apocalypse meriting either extreme personal sacrifice or a supposed cost-free regulatory fix.
That debate is now undergoing a major shift. Conservatives like Jim Manzi, Newt Gingrich and others recognize that humans are affecting the climate and that something should be done about it. Liberals and environmentalists, like Joe Romm and most recently Al Gore, are beginning to recognize the political futility of peddling sacrifice, and have started emphasizing the need to make clean energy cheap. To be sure, both camps are still far apart in their view of global warming, with Romm seeing it as a future hell on earth and Manzi viewing it as little more than a rounding error. But if we fixate on these radically divergent views of the problem we risk missing some signs of agreement over what should be done about it.
The Breakthrough Institute has recently released on what a comprehensive new national energy education policy might look like. We thought we'd provide a little background on how just powerful an investment in education can be.
"Ignorance," Thaddeus Stevens once noted, "is more costly than taxes." Wise words - and indicative of a kind of long-term thinking in which we only seem to engage in fits and starts here in the U.S.
Consider that federal financing of loans for higher education and workforce training is a relatively new development. 2008 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the National Defense Education Act, a bill that authorized $6.7 billion (2008 dollars) to improve access to and quality of education in strategic defense-related fields: science, math, engineering, technology, foreign languages, and area studies.
Renewable energy is a clear strategic asset for the military, and military demand could help drive the cost reductions that clean tech needs in order to become a core energy solution.
Written by Breakthrough Generation fellow Zach Arnold
Look behind many of the key technologies of the 20th and 21st centuries, and you'll see a long history of military involvement. The U.S. armed forces kick-started American dominance in civil aviation through their demand for planes during WWI, and later drove the growth of the computer industry by buying every microchip and supercomputer in sight during the 60's. Military scientists and military-funded researchers developed the ideas behind the Internet, nuclear power, and personal computing. Indeed, the U.S. military has arguably been the greatest force for technological growth in modern times. And now, it's time for renewable energy to get the Army treatment.
Let's look back to the 1960s. Jack Kilby, a scientist at Texas Instruments, had pioneered an innovative circuit design a few years earlier by packing several transistors onto a single conductive "chip," creating a "microchip" that stood to be more reliable, better suited to mass production, and far faster than existing circuitry. It was the military - not the consumer market - that quickly realized the strategic value of Kilby's achievement. Throughout the early 1960's, military agencies bought virtually every microchip manufacturers could produce. These purchases enabled big advances in military technology, facilitating projects like Minuteman and Apollo and cementing America's position as a military power.
In the real world, the American polity and the American market are not ready for a tough carbon price. The best way to respond to the climate challenge right now is to massively expand the role of the federal government in researching, developing, and deploying clean technology.
This is a response to Max Epstein's guest post, "In Defense of Carbon Pricing: Why Clean Energy RD&D Isn't Enough." Our response is written by Breakthrough Generation fellow Zach Arnold.
Before anything else, I want to thank Max for his thoughtful post. His arguments have been a big help in clarifying our own thinking.
In my response, I'm going to try to define the problem we're trying to solve, and clarify the differences I see between a carbon price driven regime (as Max advocates) and an investment-led regime (as we're more fond of at Breakthrough). I'm then going to explore the political feasibility of a carbon price, and what a politically sustainable carbon price can and can't do to address climate change. In doing so, I hope to show that, for now, we can't rely on carbon pricing to drive the shift to a clean energy economy.
We've asked our friend, UMD student, and occasional Washington Post editorialist Max Epstein to contribute his thoughts on carbon pricing to the blog. Our response, by Breakthrough Generation Fellow Zach Arnold, is here.
In the wake of the failed Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, there has been a widespread reevaluation of whether Cap & Trade is the most effective strategy to avert catastrophic climate change. At first many promoted a carbon tax instead, but recently there has been a call to reconsider the central focus on pricing carbon itself. Following Lieberman-Warner's abrupt death in the Senate, Michael Shellenberger wrote that the new way forward should focus on making renewable energy cheap, not polluting sources expensive. In "Scrap Kyoto," Shellenberger and Nordhaus call for a massive public investment in clean technology research and deployment. Joseph Romm in Nature calls for massive subsidized deployment of existing renewable technology, relegating R&D to the "longer-term effort aimed at a new generation of technologies for the emissions reduction effort after 2040." However, such efforts would be insufficient without a price on carbon as well.
The NYTimes' Andy Revkin debates Joe Romm who claims the time for R&D has passed. But as Revkin knows, any push to transition to a clean energy future must put money across the board into Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment.
Andy Revkin has blogged today on a debate he is engaged in on the threads of Joe Romm's climateprogress.org.
It's almost unclear what they are debating over before I remember that
Joe Romm categorically rejects any calls for public investment in
energy technology R&D as the machinations of climate
deniers/delayers -- or at least as "misguided" efforts.
Romm is probably right that this is the Debate of the Decade as it concerns the best way to transition to
a clean energy system. Revkin posits that we need public investment in
R&D in order to make scalable and bring down the price of clean
energy. Romm himself admits that he has called for R&D for the past
twenty years, but claims that the time when this research would have
helped has passed. It is now time to focus primarily (if not entirely) on deploying the technologies currently on
hand.
Market Fundamentalism has infected both sides of the debate on climate change. It's time to move past the myth of "the Free Market" when it comes to energy technology and recognize the role of government leadership and investment in history's successful innovations.
A paper by political scientist Glenn Fong starts out with a 1998 quote by Bill Gates:
"The PC industry is leading our nation's economy in to the 21st century...There isn't an industry in America that is more creative, more alive and more competitive. And the amazing thing is, all this happened without any government involvement."
Fong goes to on describe the myriad ways the federal government--mostly through its Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) --was involved in nearly every aspect of the development of the personal computer, from the human-computer interface (HCI) to the graphical user interface (GUI), to picture icons, to computer networking. Bill Gates, brilliant as he might be, seems deluded about the history of the computer.
Tesla Roadster represents the American quest for excellence: no complaints or mediocrity, but the creation of something that's simply the best. In a car like the Tesla, America can certainly zoom gloriously into the future.
This post is part of our week-long Special Issue exploring ways to sever the link between transportation and oil by electrifying transportation. Stay tuned for more...
The coolest car of the 21st Century doesn't go "vroom!"...
...it goes "whizz!"
Tesla Motors,
an innovative electric car start-up straight from the heart of Silicon
Valley, is now producing its 2008 Roadster, an all-electric sports car
than can go 0 to 60 in under 4 seconds. High-tech and emissions-free,
the Roadster celebrates a future that is not only sustainable, but sexy
and fun. (Sports car enthusiasts may find it disconcerting, however,
that when you hit the gas, the only noise from the engine is an
electrical "whizz!")
As automakers scramble to respond to rapidly shifting customer preference driven by spiking fuel prices, we now have an unprecedented and urgent opportunity to help Re-charge Detroit!
This post is part of our week-long Special Issue exploring ways to sever the link between transportation and oil by electrifying transportation. Stay tuned for more...
Toyota Motor Company announced today it's intention to retool two U.S. manufacturing plants currently building giant, full-size trucks and SUVs to instead build hybrid-electric vehicles. Meanwhile, Ford is expected to reveal more details this month on their plans to retool several plants to build the more fuel efficient models they currently sell in Europe.
As automakers scramble to react to rapidly shifting customer preference driven by spiking fuel prices, isn't it time for the United States government to make investments that help re-tool and re-charge the American auto industry?
We must foster the production of both highly functioning and attractive consumer goods as we look to break our addiction to oil and transform our energy system. Volkswagen's new plug-in hybrid electric Golf may do the trick. What else do innovative auto engineers have in store?
This
post is part of our week-long Special Issue exploring ways to sever the link
between transportation and oil by electrifying transportation. Stay
tuned for more...
Last week, Volkswagen announced it will roll out a demonstration test fleet of 20 plug-in hybrids by 2010, with plans for mass production soon after. The most exciting part about their announcement is that this electric-diesel beauty will debut in a familiar form: the fast, fun, one might even say flirty, VW Golf.
Finally! Function AND fashion. Now that is something that I feel most consumers can really get behind, and a tactic we must employ in order to create scalable solutions for our energy challenge.
As China's car culture comes of age in a post-cheap oil world, will the rapidly developing nation leapfrog to new, innovative transportation technologies like plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles? Do they have another choice?
This
post is part of our week-long Special Issue exploring ways to sever the link
between transportation and oil by electrifying transportation. Stay
tuned for more...
There may be a pretty mournful tune
coming out of Detroit these days, but over in China, everyone's gone
car-crazy. Consider this: in 2000, the private vehicle stock numbered
about ten million automobiles. A McKinsey report out in June projects that ten million cars will be sold in 2008 alone. China is now the second-largest automobile market in the world after the U.S.
China's romance with the automobile is reminiscent of America's back
in the mid-twentieth century: a personal car means comfort,
convenience, and tangible proof of newfound wealth to the millions of
Chinese entering the ranks of the middle class (the New York Times ran
a piece on this phenomenon back in April). The big difference is that China's car culture is coming of age in a post-cheap oil world.
By plugging in to new, clean American energy sources we can re-charge our economy, secure our energy future and win true Energy Freedom. This series of posts explores the power of Electrifying Transportation.
Breakthrough Blog's week-long Special Issue exploring ways to sever the link between transportation and oil by electrifying transportation. By plugging in to new, clean American energy sources we can re-charge our economy, secure our energy future and win true Energy Freedom.
Links to posts in the series are below the fold...
Jefferson and Franklin knew where to look for good ideas: France. Even today, France continues to provide a model for American policy with the world's first electric car sharing program. Viva la France!
This post is part of our week-long Special Issue exploring ways to sever the link between transportation and oil by electrifying transportation. Stay tuned for more...
"The French are most advanced in all manner of Arts, and refined Conversation, and in the Use of electric Cars." - Thomas Jefferson, personal correspondence, 1786*
In honor of Independence Day, let's take a moment here at the
Breakthrough Blog to reflect on two of our greatest Founding Fathers -
Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
Brilliant and energetic men, Franklin and Jefferson were responsible for some of the greatest advances of their time, such as bifocals and the armonica. And the Declaration of Independence.
What's more, these two giants of American history shared an abiding
love and respect for France. Having served as America's ministers to
France in the late 1700s, both saw Paris's grandeur firsthand, and saw
in its creativity and intellectual ferment a model for their own
fledgling nation.
Just think - an electrified Detroit, pumping out the world's best electric cars and manufacturing the solar panels that will power them on top of it. That's the stuff that will get the American economy going.
This post is part of our week-long Special Issue exploring ways to sever the link between transportation and oil by electrifying transportation. Stay tuned for more...
In a city known for hardcore rock and hardcore auto manufacturing,
some serious blues are the music of the week. Detroit, whose top 3 automakers have been closing plants left and right in the face of skyrocketing gas prices, is looking for a quick fix to a 10 year strategical failure. The NY Times grimly reported:
"G.M. is temporarily halting the assembly lines at
seven truck factories in North America before closing four plants
permanently within the next three years... Sales were down 28 percent
at the Ford Motor Company, 18 percent at General Motors and Nissan. Hardest hit was Chrysler, whose sales fell 36 percent after it discontinued some models in a bid to increase profit margins. Ford
says it will build 25 percent fewer vehicles and that it now expects to
lose money in 2009, the year it had set as a deadline for returning to
profitability."
Breakthrough Institute co-founder Michael Shellenberger stopped by Fox News last night, facing off against Competitive Enterprise Institute talking head Chris Horner in a Hannity and Colmes segment on the solutions to rising energy prices. As Michael noted in his appearance, domestic drilling for oil and gas will have a tiny, far-off impact on fuel prices; what we really need to solve our current energy crisis are clean, cheap, next-generation technologies like wind, solar, and electric vehicles. Here's the full clip:
The Cape Wind project, plagued by opposing NIMBY-ers for years, was given a victory Friday when a judge dismissed four out of five counts brought forth in a lawsuit by the opposition group.
The Cape Wind project was given a victory Friday, when Barnstable Superior County Judge Robert Kane ruled to dismiss four out of five counts filed in a lawsuit brought forth by the National Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and the Town of Barnstable. This ruling represents a step forward for the project, which hopes to create America's first offshore wind farm, leading the way in renewable energy development.
Government investment -- long-term incentives, an RD&D push, enabling infrastructure and public works projects, and government procurement programs -- can speed solar on it's path towards "grid parity," the point where solar on your roof beats paying your utility bill.
The solar industry is booming, ramping up production capacity and driving costs down steadily towards the mythical "Grid Parity" point - the price point when solar on your roof beats paying your utility bill. That's a game changer and the solar industry is steadily heading that direction.
Dr James Hansen throws down the gauntlet, calling for "100% Cap-and-Dividend or Fight!" This Breakthrough Generation fellow says investing in a clean energy future that will spark lasting economic prosperity AND slash greenhouse gas emissions is what's really worth fighting for.
For more than twenty years, your scientific expertise and public statements have helped many (including myself) understand the relationship between human activity and global warming. I felt a sense of urgency as I read your latest testimony to Congress (PDF) regarding the need to curb greenhouse gases and put us on the path to building a clean energy economy. I can only imagine how frustrated you must be by the inability of Congress to pass meaningful and comprehensive energy and climate legislation. As I read your testimony it was clear that you fully grasp the scale of the energy and climate challenge and desire to implement effective solutions that will tackle it head on.
That's why I felt totally lost when you articulated what you feel is the best way to transform our current energy system. You said, "One hundred percent dividend or fight!"
Silicon Valley innovators tinker with microbes that excrete a kind of renewable petroleum - "Oil 2.0." Just another example of the kind of boundless human ingenuity that will help us meet the energy needs of the 21st Century.
Scientists in Silicon Valley are spending their time and energy on teeny, tiny bugs, planning for big results. The organisms may be microscopic in size but they do something extraordinary: they excrete "renewable petrol" as they feed on agricultural waste.
While the scientists and entrepreneurs behind developing "Oil 2.0" are in California, this is not fodder for Hollywood. The companies experimenting with genetically altered bacteria and oil production have notable investors on board (like Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems), the attention of many oil industry veterans, millions of dollars, and what they are doing may have real implications for our energy future.
This post summarizes, in capsule form, what I believe to be the necessary elements of any successful suite of policies focused on climate mitigation and adaptation. This post is short, and necessarily incomplete with insufficient detail, nonetheless, its purpose is to set the stage for future, in depth discussions of each element discussed below. The elements discussed below are meant to occur in parallel. All are necessary, none by itself sufficient. I welcome comments, critique, and questions.
The following was originally submitted to the National Journal discussion "
